The Volokh Conspiracy

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A Guest Post on Plagiarism and ChatGPT

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


As a professor and someone who values academic integrity, I am always concerned about the issue of plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of using someone else's work or ideas as your own, without proper attribution or citation. It is a serious offense in the academic world, as it undermines the fundamental principle of intellectual honesty and undermines the integrity of the research and scholarship that is being produced.

Recently, there has been some concern about the use of AI language models, such as ChatGPT, in the context of plagiarism. ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can generate human-like text, and it has been used for a variety of purposes, including generating chatbot responses and creating content for websites and social media. While it is certainly an impressive technology, there are also valid concerns about the potential for ChatGPT to be used to produce content that is not entirely original.

There are a few different ways in which ChatGPT could potentially be used to facilitate plagiarism. For example, someone could feed a text or article into the model, and then use the generated output as their own work, without properly citing the source material. Alternatively, someone could use ChatGPT to generate text that is similar to someone else's work, but not identical, in order to avoid detection. In either case, the result would be a violation of academic integrity.

However, it is important to note that ChatGPT is not inherently a tool for plagiarism. Like any technology, it can be used responsibly or irresponsibly, depending on how it is applied. It is up to individuals to use ChatGPT (and other tools) in a manner that is consistent with academic standards of integrity and honesty.

In conclusion, plagiarism is a serious issue in the academic world, and it is important to be mindful of the potential for ChatGPT (and other AI language models) to be used in a manner that violates these standards. However, it is ultimately up to individuals to use these tools responsibly, and to ensure that they are not contributing to the problem of plagiarism.

If you couldn't tell, this post was written by ChatGPT. I inserted this prompt:

Write a post about plagiarism and ChatGPT in the voice of Professor Josh Blackman.

Worried yet?

Josh Blackman is a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and the President of the Harlan Institute. Follow him @JoshMBlackman.