ChatGPT and Generative AI Platforms in the Classroom: AI & Plagiarism

ChatGPT and other AI generative platforms have greatly complicated the concept of plagiarism in higher education. Consider the following dilemma:

• Plagiarism is taking credit for the work of another person, but ChatGPT isn't a person, so turning in something written by it isn't plagiarism.
• But plagiarism is also turning in work you didn't do, so submitting text written by ChatGPT is plagiarism.

Debby R.E. Cotton and Peter A. Cotton, authors of Chatting & Cheating: Ensuring Academic Integrity in the Era of ChatGPT, demonstrated this predicament by using ChatGPT to write a significant portion of their article. They considered including it as a co-author, but as they wrote, "[ChatGPT] was unable to provide agreement on submission to this journal and it has not reviewed and agreed the article before submission. Perhaps more crucially, it cannot take responsibility and be accountable for the contents of the article."

Because AI text programs are so new, academic institutions are still coming to grips with their implications, including those involving plagiarism. As of this writing, the SUNY Potsdam Academic Honor Code makes no mention of AI generative writing, but it does heavily stress plagiarism. Thus, College Libraries strongly suggest each instructor establishes clear guidelines regarding what role, if any, ChatGPT has within their classroom.

And even if instructors allow students to use ChatGPT to help them write their assignments, emerging industry standards advise that students must cite AI text platforms if they use them in order to indicate the ideas and work they are submitting are not their own.