New Concerns About AI Technology That Can Write Stories, Essays

When the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT was opened up to the public in late 2022, its sophistication took the tech world by surprise.

Like a Google search, ChatGPT can be used to answer simple questions. But it can do so much more, delivering answers to complex essay prompts and generating documents that look very much like they were written by a human.

Many educators are worried students could use the tool to essentially do their homework. New York City schools have already banned access to the technology on school networks and devices, worried that using it "does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills."

Because the text is actually written by an intelligent machine, it can evade the plagiarism software that many schools and universities use to check for cheating. But Princeton undergraduate student Edward Tian recently created GPTZero, which has the ability to scan writing to determine whether it was crafted by a human or ChatGPT's artificial intelligence. It has been used millions of times since he released it at the beginning of January.

"The reaction has been pretty astonishing," Tian said. "I've been hearing from teachers all over the world that have reached out. A lot of them have been trying out GPTZero and saying it actually confirmed some suspicions."

Tian is actually opposed to banning ChatGPT and other AI tools in schools. He is convinced that the technology represents the future, and it will be critical to learn how to use it responsibly and transparently.

"I absolutely think humans deserve to know the truth," Tian said.

When Ammaar Reshi started experimenting with ChatGPT in December, he quickly recognized its potential and decided to work with the AI tool to create a children's book. He gave ChatGPT an idea about a little girl who is friends with an intelligent robot, and the machine delivered a story.

"I essentially had a ghost writer who I was directing and kind of providing some guidance to. And it was crafting the story with me," Reshi said.

Reshi used another AI program to generate the pictures and self-published the book called "Alice and Sparkle" within a weekend. The book has angered some human authors and illustrators. While Reshi is sensitive to their concerns about how AI can appropriate human-generated work it's learning from, he says he created the book to show what is now possible.

"But whenever technology makes those kind of leaps, how do we protect those jobs that are at risk? How do we make sure it doesn't get misused, because it's really powerful," Reshi said.

Tian even acknowledges that he used an artificial intelligence tool to help him write the code for GPTZero.

"Someone pointed out the irony recently that I was building GPTZero, an AI-detection app, with the same AI technology helping me," he said.

Tian hopes to continue improving his technology, and so does OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Developers there are reportedly ready to release an even more powerful form of artificial intelligence in the coming months

CBS News reached out to Chat GPT but they declined our request for an interview.