Stealing the Works of Robots: The Use of Generative AI as an Enabler of Plagiarism
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by Mateo Alejandro
Have you ever been so lazy that you wish you could just make someone else do your work for you? I know many students have had this feeling before. Before, all people could do was suck it up and do the work themselves. But, with the recent introduction and public release of GenAIs like ChatGPT and Quillbot, people now have a tool to turn to when their laziness just gets the best of them.
Since their rise to popularity in 2022, the accessibility of GenAIs is at its all-time high. Thanks to this ease of access, many students have resorted to using them for schoolworks, especially in writing-heavy subjects like English and Research. Given the situation, there are important questions that need to be asked: Does the use of GenAI in schoolworks count truly count as stealing works? What does this lead to?
Now that GenAI is on the rise, the ethical concerns of its use in schoolworks is being questioned. One of the biggest arguments concerns whether the use of GenAI is plagiarism.
To truly understand what we’re talking about here, let us first define what plagiarism is. Plagiarism, according to Oxford Dictionary, is defined as: presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement.
For me, the use of GenAI in schoolworks counts as plagiarism if one takes no creative liberties in editing and making their own of the AI’s work. Since the work is not yours, merely copying it and claiming it as your own would be considered as plagiarism. I do believe, however, that AI can be used only for getting ideas, not for creating whole works. This should only be a last resort, as most ideas should come from the work of a human.
Let’s say you claim an AI’s work as your own. Would that be considered as plagiarism? As said before, plagiarism is defined as the act of representing the work of another as one’s own without giving appropriate credit. Since the work of an AI is not the original work of one’s own, claiming it would be considered as plagiarism.
GenAI is giving more leeway to plagiarism and academic dishonesty. This is all thanks to its accessibility and easy way to generate prompts and answers. AIs like ChatGPT have been readily accessible to the public since 2022. Generating answers is simply done through creating prompts. This leads to the compromising of the academic integrity of assessments and loss of valued learning experiences when assignments and tasks are merely done through AI.
GenAI should only be used to generate ideas, not to write whole papers and essays. Shouldn’t the work that you do in academic work should be your own, and not an AI’s? That being said, GenAI can be helpful in generating ideas, but GenAI should only augment the abilities of humans and not replace them entirely. We should prioritize the responsible use of GenAI through avoiding the plagiarism of their works.
Though, this argument might not be the most ideal, as some people think that the use of GenAI is not plagiarism. Some people may consider the stealing of an AI’s work as not on the same level of stealing the work of another human. Thus, the use of GenAI shouldn’t count as plagiarism as you are merely using the bot as a tool to create your works, and not using the ideas of other people.
Overall, the use of GenAI in schoolworks needs to be responsibly kept in check. Using an AI’s work and claiming it as your own should be considered plagiarism as it is not one’s original work. With GenAI being more and more accessible, it also becomes a leeway for students to commit plagiarism and academic dishonesty. With this in mind, we need to learn more about the responsible and ethical use of GenAI in schoolworks in order to avoid less cases of these problems.
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