Artificial Intelligence — or
AI — is a
big topic of discussion right now. People can debate this topic to
no end. One of the many realms AI found its way into is the world of writing.
There are so many AI writing tools that will help you with grammar and brainstorming, but the most
controversial tools are the ones that will write a
whole piece for you.
This is all fun and games, but the question remains … What about plagiarism?
media update's Alrika Möller explores the relationship between AI and plagiarism here: If we want to get incredibly technical, we need to look at what plagiarism
actually is before we can add AI to the conversation.
So what is it?
The act of
taking or copying someone else's work and claiming or presenting it as your own,
without informing the creator, is the basics of plagiarism.
However, there is more to it. Incorporating other people's work into your own — without giving the original source credit or acknowledging the source — is also seen as plagiarism.
Basically, you need to give credit to
whoever or
whatever contributed to your piece by writing or as a source. It is also extremely important to never,
ever try to pass someone else's work as your own.
Now we can ask the AI questions!
Is using AI writing plagiarism?
AI programmes such as
ChatGPT,
Jenni and a wide range of others can write a whole article or essay based on a single prompt. It is easy to see why people are asking questions.
As we previously established, the main idea around
plagiarism is that you need to
give credit where credit is due. This means that you have to
disclose whenever you use an AI programme to write your piece for you — even if they wrote a single sentence of your piece.
In the
spirit of credit, we also need to consider the sources your AI programme used in the piece. Most AI programmes provide
backlinks for their sources.
As the person asking for and using the piece of writing, it is your responsibility to check these links to make sure they are
accurate and then
acknowledge and
cite the source or add the links when you ultimately use the piece written for you.
So, to answer the question,
it can be plagiarism if you don't give the AI credit for doing the work and if you don't acknowledge the sources used by the AI programme.
Can plagiarism checkers detect AI writing?
The concept of a plagiarism checker is not a
new thing. Universities and publications have been using it for ages to confirm the ownership of a piece before publishing the article or releasing the research paper.
ChatGPT and other AI tools are a bit newer than most plagiarism checkers, which begs the question:
Will they know? While the AI tools are relatively new, the fact that tech companies are working on various forms of artificial intelligence is not
exactly news to anyone. We knew it was coming!
Plagiarism checkers such as
turnitin have been expecting this development and made changes accordingly and added features that will be able to detect,
to some degree, whether or not an AI tool was used.
Some people argue that most AI tools, such as ChatGPT, are more
conversational tools — created to answer questions in an easy-to-understand, well-informed manner. It is not a source of written material or already published content.
Most plagiarism detectors tell you what
percentage of the piece you entered matches other content. This could mean that AI content is less likely to trigger a plagiarism checker.
Turnitin feels confident in its AI-detecting abilities and it proudly states its accuracy on its website.
Whether or not it is worth it to take a chance is
up to you!
How do I cite AI in my writing?
This can make things a little
tricky! Different publications have different rules about using and citing AI, so the main thing is to ask before you do
anything.
For online content, it is
recommended to state the AI tools' involvement early on in your content to stay on the safe side and link the tool used.
For more official content, the AI tool is referenced along with all the other sources by naming the tool and adding the
version you used.
While the rules are still a bit confusing and the lines are
blurry, it is better to be safe than sorry.
Have you ever used any AI writing tools? If so, how did you experience it? Let us know in the comments section below.
If we gave you the AI writing bug and you want to give it a try, have a look at the Top AI writing tools.
*Image courtesy of Canva