SAN FRANCISCO — The maker of ChatGPT is trying to curb its reputation as a freewheeling cheating machine with a new tool that can help teachers detect if a student or artificial intelligence wrote that homework.
The new AI Text Classifier by OpenAI follows a weeks-long discussion at schools and colleges over fears that ChatGPT’s ability to write just about anything on command could fuel academic dishonesty and hinder learning.
Richard Drew, Associated Press
The logo for OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, appears on a mobile phone, in New York.
OpenAI cautions that its new tool — like others already available — is not foolproof. The method for detecting AI-written text “is imperfect and it will be wrong sometimes,” said Jan Leike, head of OpenAI’s alignment team tasked to make its systems safer.
“Because of that, it shouldn’t be solely relied upon when making decisions,” Leike said.
Teenagers and college students were among the millions of people who began experimenting with ChatGPT after it launched Nov. 30 as a free application on OpenAI’s website. And while many found ways to use it creatively and harmlessly, the ease with which it could answer take-home test questions and assist with other assignments sparked a panic among some educators.
By the time schools opened for the new year, New York City, Los Angeles and other big public school districts began to block its use in classrooms and on school devices.
The Seattle Public Schools district initially blocked ChatGPT on all school devices in December but then opened access to educators who want to use it as a teaching tool, said Tim Robinson, the district spokesman.
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Amazon’s Alexa could soon mimic voices of dead relatives
Stanisic Vladimir // Shutterstock
It’s a jungle out there—few places so much so as the world of “smart” advertising.
There, marketing geniuses have developed increasingly sophisticated algorithms that take all the information gathered about you online or from your phone and piece together a customer profile that may include everything from your favorite pair of socks to your children’s names.
Analyzing current market practices, Wicked Reports explored how artificial intelligence, or AI, can be wielded to gather data and make sales predictions across the internet. Some techniques you may know, such as persistent cookies that turn your computer into a ping hub for the websites you visit. Others are much more sophisticated, compiling all of your characteristics by analyzing what you’ve bought in the past, what you’ve put in your cart and abandoned, and what you’ve searched for. From there, advertisers can even make a version of similar customers to market to them as well.
The digital advertising industry is expected to crest $20 billion in 2022. That’s far from enough to crack the top 10 biggest industries in the U.S., but it’s a substantial amount of money—particularly when compared to the big-ticket ad buys of the past in splashy magazine spreads. Companies today are more eager than ever to spend what it takes to bring in ideal customers.
Continue reading to discover some of the tactics AI uses to predict buying behaviors.
Stanisic Vladimir // Shutterstock
It’s a jungle out there—few places so much so as the world of “smart” advertising.
There, marketing geniuses have developed increasingly sophisticated algorithms that take all the information gathered about you online or from your phone and piece together a customer profile that may include everything from your favorite pair of socks to your children’s names.
Analyzing current market practices, Wicked Reports explored how artificial intelligence, or AI, can be wielded to gather data and make sales predictions across the internet. Some techniques you may know, such as persistent cookies that turn your computer into a ping hub for the websites you visit. Others are much more sophisticated, compiling all of your characteristics by analyzing what you’ve bought in the past, what you’ve put in your cart and abandoned, and what you’ve searched for. From there, advertisers can even make a version of similar customers to market to them as well.
The digital advertising industry is expected to crest $20 billion in 2022. That’s far from enough to crack the top 10 biggest industries in the U.S., but it’s a substantial amount of money—particularly when compared to the big-ticket ad buys of the past in splashy magazine spreads. Companies today are more eager than ever to spend what it takes to bring in ideal customers.
Continue reading to discover some of the tactics AI uses to predict buying behaviors.
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Amazon’s Alexa could soon mimic voices of dead relatives
picture alliance // Getty Images
You may know about cookies: tiny text files that websites deposit on your computer as a way to track online behavior.
When you visit websites from Europe, for example, a law there mandates that you click through a cookie agreement that’s much more transparent than in the U.S. There are session cookies lasting one browsing “session” (until you restart your computer or browser) and persistent cookies that stay until you delete them. Think of a cookie as a waving arm each time you visit the same website. Together, they form a heat map of how often and when you visit every website in your browsing history. They can even flag your presence to other websites as a way to combine your data.
picture alliance // Getty Images
You may know about cookies: tiny text files that websites deposit on your computer as a way to track online behavior.
When you visit websites from Europe, for example, a law there mandates that you click through a cookie agreement that’s much more transparent than in the U.S. There are session cookies lasting one browsing “session” (until you restart your computer or browser) and persistent cookies that stay until you delete them. Think of a cookie as a waving arm each time you visit the same website. Together, they form a heat map of how often and when you visit every website in your browsing history. They can even flag your presence to other websites as a way to combine your data.
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Amazon’s Alexa could soon mimic voices of dead relatives
Anna Hoychuk // Shutterstock
User characteristics, and something called demographic segmentation, is a key way online advertising targets you. User characteristics are any of your qualities, from your gender and age to what car you drive and the pets you own. These user characteristics lead to the advertising concept of demographic segmentation, in which companies can buy lists of really specific people.
Are you a 25-year-old white man with one dog, a full-time job as an auto tech, and an apartment rental in a “transitional” neighborhood? We have just the plaid shirt for you.
Anna Hoychuk // Shutterstock
User characteristics, and something called demographic segmentation, is a key way online advertising targets you. User characteristics are any of your qualities, from your gender and age to what car you drive and the pets you own. These user characteristics lead to the advertising concept of demographic segmentation, in which companies can buy lists of really specific people.
Are you a 25-year-old white man with one dog, a full-time job as an auto tech, and an apartment rental in a “transitional” neighborhood? We have just the plaid shirt for you.
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Amazon’s Alexa could soon mimic voices of dead relatives
mhong84 // Shutterstock
If you’ve used GPS in your smartphone or any of the hyperlocal dating apps, you’ve leveraged location data to your advantage—at least for now.
How does your phone know where you are? Cellphone towers ping your phone when you’re nearby. In your home, your Wi-Fi network is likely hardcoded with your location. That’s also true of any Wi-Fi network you hop into or onto during your errands, at school, at work, and so forth. After that, GPS can pinpoint your phone to an alarmingly small area as you carry it around, so not just in your home but in one corner of one room.
mhong84 // Shutterstock
If you’ve used GPS in your smartphone or any of the hyperlocal dating apps, you’ve leveraged location data to your advantage—at least for now.
How does your phone know where you are? Cellphone towers ping your phone when you’re nearby. In your home, your Wi-Fi network is likely hardcoded with your location. That’s also true of any Wi-Fi network you hop into or onto during your errands, at school, at work, and so forth. After that, GPS can pinpoint your phone to an alarmingly small area as you carry it around, so not just in your home but in one corner of one room.
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Amazon’s Alexa could soon mimic voices of dead relatives
Gorodenkoff // Shutterstock
Some items on this list are not very surprising, or we’re used to being told about them so they don’t seem as insidious and scary as they once did. But people are likely still surprised by the depths that companies will go to in order to better advertise to you. Your favorite clothing store, for example, might put together a complete data “picture” of you: what you’ve purchased from them, what size you shop for, where your address is, and more. Then they can reverse engineer someone just like you and buy a demographically matching list.
Anything can be filtered until just the exact desired customer base remains, and then they buy the ads.
Gorodenkoff // Shutterstock
Some items on this list are not very surprising, or we’re used to being told about them so they don’t seem as insidious and scary as they once did. But people are likely still surprised by the depths that companies will go to in order to better advertise to you. Your favorite clothing store, for example, might put together a complete data “picture” of you: what you’ve purchased from them, what size you shop for, where your address is, and more. Then they can reverse engineer someone just like you and buy a demographically matching list.
Anything can be filtered until just the exact desired customer base remains, and then they buy the ads.
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Amazon’s Alexa could soon mimic voices of dead relatives
Habichtland // Shutterstock
How much do you know about your IP address? Many of us are old enough to remember a time when connecting to the internet required knowing a specific IP address and typing it into our PC settings.
Today, the router you likely have in your home has a hard-coded IP address whose number values reflect where you are as well as which “node” you have on your local network. That information may be for sale to different companies because, with the right technology, they can use some IP addresses in order to infer the rest—and guess where you live. Apple is among the tech companies pushing back on IP targeting of this nature by masking IP addresses in its proprietary browser Safari.
This story originally appeared on Wicked Reports and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
Habichtland // Shutterstock
How much do you know about your IP address? Many of us are old enough to remember a time when connecting to the internet required knowing a specific IP address and typing it into our PC settings.
Today, the router you likely have in your home has a hard-coded IP address whose number values reflect where you are as well as which “node” you have on your local network. That information may be for sale to different companies because, with the right technology, they can use some IP addresses in order to infer the rest—and guess where you live. Apple is among the tech companies pushing back on IP targeting of this nature by masking IP addresses in its proprietary browser Safari.
This story originally appeared on Wicked Reports and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
PopTika // Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence is a technology built and programmed to assist computer systems in mimicking human behavior. Algorithm training informed by experience and iterative processing allows the machine to learn, improve, and ultimately use human-like thinking to solve complex problems.
Although there are several ways computers can be "taught," reinforcement learning—where AI is rewarded for desired actions and penalized for undesirable ones, is one of the most common. This method, which allows the AI to become smarter as it processes more data, has been highly effective, especially for gaming.
AI can filter email spam, categorize and classify documents based on tags or keywords, launch or defend against missile attacks, and assist in complex medical procedures. However, if people feel that AI is unpredictable and unreliable, collaboration with this technology can be undermined by an inherent distrust of it. Diversity-informed algorithms can detect nuanced communication and distinguish behavioral responses, which could inspire more faith in AI as a collaborator rather than just as a gaming opponent.
Stacker assessed the current state of AI, from predictive models to learning algorithms, and identified the capabilities and limitations of automation in various settings. Keep reading for 15 things AI can and can't do, compiled from sources at Harvard and the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT.
You may also like: How alcohol-related deaths have changed in every state over the past two decades
PopTika // Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence is a technology built and programmed to assist computer systems in mimicking human behavior. Algorithm training informed by experience and iterative processing allows the machine to learn, improve, and ultimately use human-like thinking to solve complex problems.
Although there are several ways computers can be "taught," reinforcement learning—where AI is rewarded for desired actions and penalized for undesirable ones, is one of the most common. This method, which allows the AI to become smarter as it processes more data, has been highly effective, especially for gaming.
AI can filter email spam, categorize and classify documents based on tags or keywords, launch or defend against missile attacks, and assist in complex medical procedures. However, if people feel that AI is unpredictable and unreliable, collaboration with this technology can be undermined by an inherent distrust of it. Diversity-informed algorithms can detect nuanced communication and distinguish behavioral responses, which could inspire more faith in AI as a collaborator rather than just as a gaming opponent.
Stacker assessed the current state of AI, from predictive models to learning algorithms, and identified the capabilities and limitations of automation in various settings. Keep reading for 15 things AI can and can't do, compiled from sources at Harvard and the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT.
You may also like: How alcohol-related deaths have changed in every state over the past two decades
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Ground Picture // Shutterstock
AI combines data inputs with iterative processing algorithms to analyze and identify patterns. With each round of new inputs, AI "learns" through the deep learning and natural language processes built into training algorithms.
AI rapidly analyzes, categorizes, and classifies millions of data points, and gets smarter with each iteration. Learning through feedback from the accumulation of data is different from traditional human learning, which is generally more organic. After all, AI can mimic human behavior but cannot create it.
Ground Picture // Shutterstock
AI combines data inputs with iterative processing algorithms to analyze and identify patterns. With each round of new inputs, AI "learns" through the deep learning and natural language processes built into training algorithms.
AI rapidly analyzes, categorizes, and classifies millions of data points, and gets smarter with each iteration. Learning through feedback from the accumulation of data is different from traditional human learning, which is generally more organic. After all, AI can mimic human behavior but cannot create it.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Bas Nastassia // Shutterstock
AI cannot answer questions requiring inference, a nuanced understanding of language, or a broad understanding of multiple topics. In other words, while scientists have managed to "teach" AI to pass standardized eighth-grade and even high-school science tests, it has yet to pass a college entrance exam.
College entrance exams require greater logic and language capacity than AI is currently capable of and often include open-ended questions in addition to multiple choice.
Bas Nastassia // Shutterstock
AI cannot answer questions requiring inference, a nuanced understanding of language, or a broad understanding of multiple topics. In other words, while scientists have managed to "teach" AI to pass standardized eighth-grade and even high-school science tests, it has yet to pass a college entrance exam.
College entrance exams require greater logic and language capacity than AI is currently capable of and often include open-ended questions in addition to multiple choice.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Proxima Studio // Shutterstock
The majority of employees in the tech industry are white men. And since AI is essentially an extension of those who build it, biases can (and do) emerge in systems designed to mimic human behavior.
Only about 25% of computer jobs and 15% of engineering jobs are held by women, according to the Pew Research Center. Fewer than 10% of people employed by industry giants Google, Microsoft, and Meta are Black. This lack of diversity becomes increasingly magnified as AI "learns" through iterative processing and communicating with other tech devices or bots. With increasing incidences of chatbots repeating hate speech or failing to recognize people with darker skin tones, diversity training is necessary.
Proxima Studio // Shutterstock
The majority of employees in the tech industry are white men. And since AI is essentially an extension of those who build it, biases can (and do) emerge in systems designed to mimic human behavior.
Only about 25% of computer jobs and 15% of engineering jobs are held by women, according to the Pew Research Center. Fewer than 10% of people employed by industry giants Google, Microsoft, and Meta are Black. This lack of diversity becomes increasingly magnified as AI "learns" through iterative processing and communicating with other tech devices or bots. With increasing incidences of chatbots repeating hate speech or failing to recognize people with darker skin tones, diversity training is necessary.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Zephyr_p // Shutterstock
Unstructured data like images, sounds, and handwriting comprise around 90% of the information companies receive. And AI's ability to recognize it has almost unlimited applications, from medical imaging to autonomous vehicles to digital/video facial recognition and security. With the potential for this kind of autonomous power, diversity training is an imperative inclusion in university-level STEM pedagogy—where more than 80% of instructors are white men— to enhance diversity in hiring practices and in turn, in AI.
Zephyr_p // Shutterstock
Unstructured data like images, sounds, and handwriting comprise around 90% of the information companies receive. And AI's ability to recognize it has almost unlimited applications, from medical imaging to autonomous vehicles to digital/video facial recognition and security. With the potential for this kind of autonomous power, diversity training is an imperative inclusion in university-level STEM pedagogy—where more than 80% of instructors are white men— to enhance diversity in hiring practices and in turn, in AI.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Andrey_Popov // Shutterstock
Andrey_Popov // Shutterstock
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Chepko Danil Vitalevich // Shutterstock
Chepko Danil Vitalevich // Shutterstock
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Vasilyev Alexandr // Shutterstock
Vasilyev Alexandr // Shutterstock
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Gorodenkoff // Shutterstock
AI can be described as brittle, meaning it can break down easily when encountering unexpected events. During the isolation of COVID-19, one Scottish soccer team used an automatic camera system to broadcast its match. But the AI camera confused the soccer ball with another round, shiny object — a linesman's bald head.
Gorodenkoff // Shutterstock
AI can be described as brittle, meaning it can break down easily when encountering unexpected events. During the isolation of COVID-19, one Scottish soccer team used an automatic camera system to broadcast its match. But the AI camera confused the soccer ball with another round, shiny object — a linesman's bald head.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Claudia Herran // Shutterstock
Flippy is an AI assistant that is flipping burgers at fast food chains in California. The AI relies on sensors to track temperature and cooking time. However, Flippy is designed to work with humans rather than replace them. Eventually, AI assistants like Flippy will be able to perform more complicated tasks—but they won't be able to replace a chef's culinary palate and finesse.
Claudia Herran // Shutterstock
Flippy is an AI assistant that is flipping burgers at fast food chains in California. The AI relies on sensors to track temperature and cooking time. However, Flippy is designed to work with humans rather than replace them. Eventually, AI assistants like Flippy will be able to perform more complicated tasks—but they won't be able to replace a chef's culinary palate and finesse.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Ground Picture // Shutterstock
Ground Picture // Shutterstock
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Sharomka // Shutterstock
In 2017, a Dallas six-year-old ordered a $170 dollhouse with one simple command to Amazon's AI device, Alexa. When a TV news journalist reported the story and repeated the girl's statement, "...Alexa ordered me a dollhouse," hundreds of devices in other people's homes responded to it as if it were a command.
As smart as this AI technology is, Alexa and similar devices still require human involvement to set preferences to prevent voice commands for automatic purchases and to enable other safeguards.
Sharomka // Shutterstock
In 2017, a Dallas six-year-old ordered a $170 dollhouse with one simple command to Amazon's AI device, Alexa. When a TV news journalist reported the story and repeated the girl's statement, "...Alexa ordered me a dollhouse," hundreds of devices in other people's homes responded to it as if it were a command.
As smart as this AI technology is, Alexa and similar devices still require human involvement to set preferences to prevent voice commands for automatic purchases and to enable other safeguards.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Roman Strebkov // Shutterstock
China's pharmaceutical companies rely on AI to create and maintain optimal conditions for their largest cockroach breeding facility. Cockroaches are bred by the billions and then crushed to make a "healing potion" believed to treat respiratory and gastric issues, as well as other diseases.
Roman Strebkov // Shutterstock
China's pharmaceutical companies rely on AI to create and maintain optimal conditions for their largest cockroach breeding facility. Cockroaches are bred by the billions and then crushed to make a "healing potion" believed to treat respiratory and gastric issues, as well as other diseases.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
Miriam Doerr Martin Frommherz // Shutterstock
People fear that a fully automated economy would eliminate jobs, and this is true to some degree: AI isn't coming, it's already here. But millions of algorithms programmed with a specific task based on a specific data point can never be confused with actual consciousness.
In a TED Talk, brain scientist Henning Beck asserts that new ideas and new thoughts are unique to the human brain. People can take breaks, make mistakes, and get tired or distracted: all characteristics that Beck believes are necessary for creativity. Machines work harder, faster, and more—all actions that algorithms will replace. Trying and failing, stepping back and taking a break, and learning from new and alternative opinions are the key ingredients to creativity and innovation. Humans will always be creative because we are not computers.
Miriam Doerr Martin Frommherz // Shutterstock
People fear that a fully automated economy would eliminate jobs, and this is true to some degree: AI isn't coming, it's already here. But millions of algorithms programmed with a specific task based on a specific data point can never be confused with actual consciousness.
In a TED Talk, brain scientist Henning Beck asserts that new ideas and new thoughts are unique to the human brain. People can take breaks, make mistakes, and get tired or distracted: all characteristics that Beck believes are necessary for creativity. Machines work harder, faster, and more—all actions that algorithms will replace. Trying and failing, stepping back and taking a break, and learning from new and alternative opinions are the key ingredients to creativity and innovation. Humans will always be creative because we are not computers.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
vfhnb12 // Shutterstock
Learning from sensors, brush patterns, and teeth shape, AI-enabled toothbrushes also measure time, pressure, and position to maximize dental hygiene. More like electric brushes than robots, these expensive dental instruments connect to apps that rely on smartphone's front-facing cameras.
vfhnb12 // Shutterstock
Learning from sensors, brush patterns, and teeth shape, AI-enabled toothbrushes also measure time, pressure, and position to maximize dental hygiene. More like electric brushes than robots, these expensive dental instruments connect to apps that rely on smartphone's front-facing cameras.
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15 things AI can — and can’t — do
“We can’t afford to ignore it,” Robinson said.
The district is also discussing possibly expanding the use of ChatGPT into classrooms to let teachers use it to train students to be better critical thinkers and to let students use the application as a “personal tutor” or to help generate new ideas when working on an assignment, Robinson said.
School districts around the country say they are seeing the conversation around ChatGPT evolve quickly.
“The initial reaction was ‘OMG, how are we going to stem the tide of all the cheating that will happen with ChatGPT,’” said Devin Page, a technology specialist with the Calvert County Public School District in Maryland. Now there is a growing realization that “this is the future” and blocking it is not the solution, he said.
“I think we would be naïve if we were not aware of the dangers this tool poses, but we also would fail to serve our students if we ban them and us from using it for all its potential power,” said Page, who thinks districts like his own will eventually unblock ChatGPT, especially once the company’s detection service is in place.
OpenAI emphasized the limitations of its detection tool in a recent blog post, but said that in addition to deterring plagiarism, it could help to detect automated disinformation campaigns and other misuse of AI to mimic humans.
The longer a passage of text, the better the tool is at detecting if an AI or human wrote something. Type in any text — a college admissions essay, or a literary analysis of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” — and the tool will label it as either “very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely” AI-generated.
But much like ChatGPT itself, which was trained on a huge trove of digitized books, newspapers and online writings but often confidently spits out falsehoods or nonsense, it’s not easy to interpret how it came up with a result.
“We don’t fundamentally know what kind of pattern it pays attention to, or how it works internally,” Leike said. “There’s really not much we could say at this point about how the classifier actually works.”
Higher education institutions around the world also have begun debating responsible use of AI technology. Sciences Po, one of France’s most prestigious universities, prohibited its use last week and warned that anyone found surreptitiously using ChatGPT and other AI tools to produce written or oral work could be banned from Sciences Po and other institutions.
In response to the backlash, OpenAI said it has been working for several weeks to craft new guidelines to help educators.
“Like many other technologies, it may be that one district decides that it’s inappropriate for use in their classrooms,” said OpenAI policy researcher Lama Ahmad. “We don’t really push them one way or another. We just want to give them the information that they need to be able to make the right decisions for them.”
It’s an unusually public role for the research-oriented San Francisco startup, now backed by billions of dollars in investment from its partner Microsoft and facing growing interest from the public and governments.
France’s digital economy minister Jean-Noël Barrot recently met in California with OpenAI executives, including CEO Sam Altman, and a week later told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he was optimistic about the technology. But the government minister — a former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the French business school HEC in Paris — said there are also difficult ethical questions that will need to be addressed.
“So if you’re in the law faculty, there is room for concern because obviously ChatGPT, among other tools, will be able to deliver exams that are relatively impressive,” he said. “If you are in the economics faculty, then you’re fine because ChatGPT will have a hard time finding or delivering something that is expected when you are in a graduate-level economics faculty.”
He said it will be increasingly important for users to understand the basics of how these systems work so they know what biases might exist.
