The Foreign Service Journal, June 2023

60 JUNE 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT self-talk to carry through life. (However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t use AI to help you become a better writer. More about that later.) Consequences. If the above reasons don’t resonate, there’s always this one: If you get caught lying about who (or what) wrote your essays, you may face some pretty bad consequences: a rescinded admissions offer; suspension or even expulsion from your high school; even loss of respect from those you care about. How Well Can AI-Generated Essays Be Detected? Scott Aaronson, a computer science professor at the University of Texas– Austin, and now a guest researcher at OpenAI, has been working on a digital “watermark” that signals AI-generated text. Several entities have also created AI detectors, although they vary in quality. I sent the first two paragraphs of a ChatGPT-generated essay to three dif- ferent AI detector sites: Crossplag.com, AIwritingcheck.org, and GPTZero.me. Only GPTZero, a program developed by Princeton computer science student Edward Tian, detected AI writing. But with rapidly developing programs such as Turnitin, college admissions officers may soon be checking application essays with AI detection software. As of this writing, administrators are still wary about using AI detectors in the college classroom. Says Betsy Barre, executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Wake Forest University: “If [AI detection tools] are not accurate, then we shouldn’t use them.” Anna Mills, a writing instructor and Open Textbook author at the College of Marin, agrees: “Some detection tools have given false positives that could lead to false accusations of cheating.” But she does think there might be a role for them, “if they are not used punitively but as part of student-teacher dialogue.” Barre adds, “We need to protect our students who don’t cheat.” She points out that a professor “can ask a student to walk through how they came up with their ideas for a paper.” A growing list of universities are crafting new honor code guidelines redefining plagiarism and clarifying that students may not claim AI-generated