Rethinking Homework in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

The evolution of natural language processing techniques has led to the development of advanced conversational tools such as ChatGPT, capable of assisting users with a variety of activities. Media attention has centered on ChatGPT’s potential impact, policy implications, and ethical ramifications, particularly in the context of education. As such tools become more accessible, students across the globe may use them to assist with their homework. However, it is still unclear whether ChatGPT’s performance is advanced enough to pose a serious risk of plagiarism. We fill this gap by evaluating ChatGPT on two introductory and two advanced university-level courses. We find that ChatGPT receives near-perfect grades on the majority of questions in the introductory courses but has not yet reached the level of sophistication required to pass in advanced courses. Moreover, adding a few full stops or typos may fool a machine learning algorithm designed to detect ChatGPT-generated text. These findings suggest that, at least for some courses, current artificial intelligence tools pose a real threat that can no longer be overlooked by educational institutions.