Using ChatGPT or other AI-powered tools has become a common affair. As long as you are using these tools for harmless purposes, you should not have an issue. However, a Texas A&M University professor does not take kindly to any AI-generated content and has managed to draw some attention.

Professor under fire after jeopardizing the future of 15 students by simply using ChatGPT to check the authenticity and originality of their papers

According to a report, a professor at Texas A&M University decided to punish 15 students for using ChatGPT. The professor claims that these students have used AI-powered software to generate their papers, and the students have been punished by receiving an incomplete grade on their papers, with their diplomas being on hold until they are completely investigated. This might sound like harsh treatment, but the situation gets worse or funny, depending on how you look at it.

It turns out that instead of running the papers through specialized tools that detect AI content, the university professor ran the papers through ChatGPT to figure out whether AI generated it. And as we all know, that is not the smartest approach. Here is a screenshot of the email sent by the professor to all the students who failed the exam. The screenshot was provided by a Reddit user DearKick, the fiance of a student that received this unfair punishment.

This might seem like an issue with ChatGPT itself, but here is the twist. You see, ChatGPT is not a tool that is used to detect AI-generated work. It actually is not capable of determining it properly. If you are not aware, AI chatbots normally go through a meltdown or hallucinations, as the official term goes. Other tools actually do the job that they are supposed to, and the tool that the professor used is simply not meant for the job.

Thankfully, the university has started exonerating the students, but the investigation has revealed that at least 2 students did confess to using ChatGPT during the semester. The Reddit thread has been noticed by the university as well, and the professor could end up losing his job because of several other issues that have come forward during their tenure at the university.

Using ChatGPT or any other AI bot is not good for academic work or any work that requires writing. Universities and companies generally have guidelines that define the extent of AI that is considered ethical, but getting entire papers written by AI is not good, and similarly, checking these papers using AI is also not considered good. Turn It In is a very famous tool that universities and colleges around the world use to detect any content that is plagiarized, and there are even tools that can detect the use of AI within written work, and professors and instructors should focus on using those.