6 ms·

Regardless of whether students should be using ChatGPT, I strongly disagree that a ChatGPT-written essay is "plagiarism". ChatGPT is not an author, it's a comp

Regardless of whether students should be using ChatGPT, I strongly disagree that a ChatGPT-written essay is "plagiarism". ChatGPT is not an author, it's a computer program. We don't expect bibliographies to include Microsoft Word, Grammerly, or iOS Keyboard Predictive Text in the list of references. If I use a piece of software to create an essay, the essay that's created belongs to me.

elefanten 4y ago
I guess it depends if you consider the act of writing to be something that can only be done by a human. If a program can produce a work that passes as "writing", then that program could be called the "author" of the work. So a student that takes said output and hands it in is plagiarizing by claiming credit for something written by a different "author". It'll probably take some time for language to evolve around non-human agents. There's no intrinsic reason to prefer separating (or combining) that terminology by humanness of agent, afaik. At least, for common usage. One will win and only time will tell.
kuhewa 4y ago
Plagarism is passing off others' ideas or words off as your own without attribution. IMO there is an argument to be made whether conjuring up text from a model of others' words should qualify as "others' ideas or words", but if it isn't technically academic plagarism I reckon it is a distinction without a difference. The concern with academic plagarism isn't primarily IP, so I reckon it doesn't inherently matter whether "others" being borrowed from is a particular author. Also, There's a commonly understood threshold for plagiarism where a single word won't qualify and a phrase probably won't qualify, but a whole paragraph does. That is why Grammarly isn't plagarism, not because it is software.
andai 4y ago
It's not plagiarism in the sense that you took stole else's work, it's plagiarism in the sense that you didn't produce it yourself and passed it off as your own. So in an academic context, for grading your understanding, it becomes meaningless to grade something written by a machine instead of by you. In other contexts, it's totally fine.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  But if I wrote the prompt—and a prompt is all that it takes to produce writing nowadays—isn't it mine? Where is the line between ChatGPT and Grammerly? Grammerly won't produce entire paragraphs, but it absolutely will rewrite sentences.
  - thorncorona 4y ago
    Having someone edit your writing is very different than having someone produce your writing. If I ask a human to write a 500 word essay on the invention of the computer, but give them the prompt, that is absolutely plagiarism. If I ask Grammerly to write a 500 word essay on the invention of the computer, but give them the prompt, that is still absolutely plagiarism.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    In this context, the initial prompt is the one from the teacher to the student that describes an essay title or topic. Adding prompts like 'academic writing' or 'avoid excessive detail' don't constitute any real creative or intellectual contribution. Do you think buying a cheeseburger makes you a chef?
    - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      > Do you think buying a cheeseburger makes you a chef? No, because someone else was the chef in that case. But if I bought a conveyer belt machine that made cheeseburgers automatically at the press of a button, and I used that machine to cook dinner—maybe! If we lived in a world where machines like that were common, the meaning of "cooking" would change...
      - anigbrowl 4y ago
        I don't think so. I used to cook for a living and still make meals regularly at home, I'm pretty good at it. But sometimes I just want cup noodles, and when I make them I don't consider it cooking. Maybe a better example is popcorn. I can make it in a microwave, or I can make it in a pot on the stove from scratch. It takes about the same amount of time, and the quality is about the same. But doing it by hand involves many more small decisions, like the amount of oil, corn kernels, heat, cook time, knowing when to stop, what flavor ingredients to add and how much etc. Now I can do it on autopilot and never have a single burned or unpopped kernel, but it took maybe 100 less-than-perfect efforts to get to that.
asdff 4y ago
ChatGPT is like hiring someone to write your essay for you. It's not your words and unethical to claim they are. If you used chatgpt and you think its up there with Microsoft Word or spell checkers in terms of tooling, then go ahead and tell your teacher you've used chatgpt for the assignment and see how that goes for you.

elefanten 4y ago

I guess it depends if you consider the act of writing to be something that can only be done by a human. If a program can produce a work that passes as "writing", then that program could be called the "author" of the work. So a student that takes said output and hands it in is plagiarizing by claiming credit for something written by a different "author". It'll probably take some time for language to evolve around non-human agents. There's no intrinsic reason to prefer separating (or combining) that terminology by humanness of agent, afaik. At least, for common usage. One will win and only time will tell.

kuhewa 4y ago

Plagarism is passing off others' ideas or words off as your own without attribution. IMO there is an argument to be made whether conjuring up text from a model of others' words should qualify as "others' ideas or words", but if it isn't technically academic plagarism I reckon it is a distinction without a difference. The concern with academic plagarism isn't primarily IP, so I reckon it doesn't inherently matter whether "others" being borrowed from is a particular author. Also, There's a commonly understood threshold for plagiarism where a single word won't qualify and a phrase probably won't qualify, but a whole paragraph does. That is why Grammarly isn't plagarism, not because it is software.

andai 4y ago

It's not plagiarism in the sense that you took stole else's work, it's plagiarism in the sense that you didn't produce it yourself and passed it off as your own. So in an academic context, for grading your understanding, it becomes meaningless to grade something written by a machine instead of by you. In other contexts, it's totally fine.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago
But if I wrote the prompt—and a prompt is all that it takes to produce writing nowadays—isn't it mine? Where is the line between ChatGPT and Grammerly? Grammerly won't produce entire paragraphs, but it absolutely will rewrite sentences.
- thorncorona 4y ago
  Having someone edit your writing is very different than having someone produce your writing. If I ask a human to write a 500 word essay on the invention of the computer, but give them the prompt, that is absolutely plagiarism. If I ask Grammerly to write a 500 word essay on the invention of the computer, but give them the prompt, that is still absolutely plagiarism.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  In this context, the initial prompt is the one from the teacher to the student that describes an essay title or topic. Adding prompts like 'academic writing' or 'avoid excessive detail' don't constitute any real creative or intellectual contribution. Do you think buying a cheeseburger makes you a chef?
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    > Do you think buying a cheeseburger makes you a chef? No, because someone else was the chef in that case. But if I bought a conveyer belt machine that made cheeseburgers automatically at the press of a button, and I used that machine to cook dinner—maybe! If we lived in a world where machines like that were common, the meaning of "cooking" would change...
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      I don't think so. I used to cook for a living and still make meals regularly at home, I'm pretty good at it. But sometimes I just want cup noodles, and when I make them I don't consider it cooking. Maybe a better example is popcorn. I can make it in a microwave, or I can make it in a pot on the stove from scratch. It takes about the same amount of time, and the quality is about the same. But doing it by hand involves many more small decisions, like the amount of oil, corn kernels, heat, cook time, knowing when to stop, what flavor ingredients to add and how much etc. Now I can do it on autopilot and never have a single burned or unpopped kernel, but it took maybe 100 less-than-perfect efforts to get to that.

asdff 4y ago

ChatGPT is like hiring someone to write your essay for you. It's not your words and unethical to claim they are. If you used chatgpt and you think its up there with Microsoft Word or spell checkers in terms of tooling, then go ahead and tell your teacher you've used chatgpt for the assignment and see how that goes for you.