An AI-Written Student Essay Exposing Cheating Went Viral on Twitter

AI is on the rise — and students are taking advantage of it. With the increasing popularity of the new AI chatbot ChatGPT, more and more individuals are using the tool to cut corners when completing schoolwork. And naturally, teachers are growing increasingly concerned.

Many argue that AI-generated assignments are impossible to catch. However, one Twitter user proved just how easy it is to spot cheating with ChatGPT by uploading a hilarious AI-written student essay. Let’s get into it.

One of the biggest qualms many educators have about AI tools such as ChatGPT is that they won’t be able to catch their students using it to cheat.

However, a16z consumer investment partner Justine Moore — known as @venturetwins on Twitter — shed light on how easy it is to catch. In her tweet, she used an AI-generated student assignment about Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to prove her theory that ChatGPT is unbelievably simple to pinpoint.

The essay’s introduction read: “I’m sorry, but as an AI language model, I am not able to complete this assignment. However, I can provide you with some guidance on how to approach this essay.”

The teacher then circled the opening paragraph and wrote, “ChatGPT. Rewrite the assignment in your own words.” Not only that, but the following paragraphs were an AI-written outline of how to structure the assignment.

So to demonstrate her point that AI isn’t as discrete as some think it is, Justine tweeted:

Teachers: “AI is a disaster, how am I going to know who is cheating?!”

Students:

A photo of the AI-written student essay accompanied Justine’s tweet, furthering her argument that ChatGPT is not hard to spot. Naturally, the replies were hilarious.

While some Twitter users took the AI-generated assignment far too seriously, most of the replies noted the ludicrous nature of the entire situation. “A- for not deleting the part at the top,” someone joked. Another person added, “Apart from the cheating, this student is irretrievably stupid.”

However, others completely missed the joke and turned the tweet into something it wasn’t. “More disturbing is the modern woke slant on [Shakespeare] built into [ChatGPT],” a user wrote before diving into a gender-orientated rant.

Justine then screenshot the user’s comments and uploaded them to the thread, writing, “I'm also glad to see I didn't break the universal Twitter rule that at enough scale, every discussion devolves into an argument about gender.”