check if an essay is written by chatgpt

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How to tell if an article was written by chatgpt.

While no method is totally effective, you can train yourself to spot telltale markers of AI writing — for now.

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How to tell if chatgpt wrote that article, can you use ai to detect ai-generated text, tools to check if an article was written by chatgpt, train your brain to catch ai, key takeaways.

You can tell a ChatGPT-written article by its simple, repetitive structure and its tendency to make logical and factual errors. Some tools are available for automatically detecting AI-generated text, but they are prone to false positives.

AI technology is changing what we see online and how we interact with the world. From a Midjourney photo of the Pope in a puffer coat to language learning models like ChatGPT, artificial intelligence is working its way into our lives.

The more sinister uses of AI tech, like a political disinformation campaign blasting out fake articles, mean we need to educate ourselves enough to spot the fakes. So how can you tell if an article is actually AI generated text?

Multiple methods and tools currently exist to help determine whether the article you're reading was written by a robot. Not all of them are 100% reliable, and they can deliver false positives, but they do offer a starting point.

One big marker of human-written text, at least for now, is randomness. While people will write using different styles and slang and often make typos, AI language models very rarely make those kinds of mistakes. According to MIT Technology Review , "human-written text is riddled with typos and is incredibly variable," while AI generated text models like ChatGPT are much better at creating typo-less text. Of course, a good copy editor will have the same effect, so you have to watch for more than just correct spelling.

Another indicator is punctuation patterns. Humans will use punctuation more randomly than an AI model might. AI generated text also usually contains more connector words like "the," "it," or "is" instead of larger more rarely used words because large language models operate by predicting what word will is most likely to come next, not coming up with something that would sound good the way a human might.

This is visible in ChatGPT's response to one of the stock questions on OpenAI's website. When asked, "Can you explain quantum computing in simple terms," you get sentences like: "What makes qubits special is that they can exist in multiple states at the same time, thanks to a property called superposition. It's like a qubit can be both a 0 and a 1 simultaneously. "

Short, simple connecting words are regularly used, the sentences are all a similar length, and paragraphs all follow a similar structure. The end result is writing that sounds and feels a bit robotic.

Large language models themselves can be trained to spot AI generated writing. Training the system on two sets of text --- one written by AI and the other written by people --- can theoretically teach the model to recognize and detect AI writing like ChatGPT.

Researchers are also working on watermarking methods to detect AI articles and text. Tom Goldstein, who teaches computer science at the University of Maryland, is working on a way to build watermarks into AI language models in the hope that it can help detect machine-generated writing even if it's good enough to mimic human randomness.

Invisible to the naked eye, the watermark would be detectable by an algorithm, which would indicate it as either human or AI generated depending on how often it adhered to or broke the watermarking rules. Unfortunately, this method hasn't tested so well on later models of ChatGPT.

You can find multiple copy-and-paste tools online to help you check whether an article is AI generated. Many of them use language models to scan the text, including ChatGPT-4 itself.

Undetectable AI , for example, markets itself as a tool to make your AI writing indistinguishable from a human's. Copy and paste the text into its window and the program checks it against results from other AI detection tools like GPTZero to assign it a likelihood score --- it basically checks whether eight other AI detectors would think your text was written by a robot.

Originality is another tool, geared toward large publishers and content producers. It claims to be more accurate than others on the market and uses ChatGPT-4 to help detect text written by AI. Other popular checking tools include:

Most of these tools give you a percentage value, like 96% human and 4% AI, to determine how likely it is that the text was written by a human. If the score is 40-50% AI or higher, it's likely the piece was AI-generated.

While developers are working to make these tools better at detecting AI generated text, none of them are totally accurate and can falsely flag human content as AI generated. There's also concern that since large language models like GPT-4 are improving so quickly, detection models are constantly playing catchup.

Related: Can ChatGPT Write Essays: Is Using AI to Write Essays a Good Idea?

In addition to using tools, you can train yourself to catch AI generated content. It takes practice, but over time you can get better at it.

Daphne Ippolito, a senior research scientist at Google's AI division Google Brain, made a game called Real Or Fake Text  (ROFT) that can help you separate human sentences from robotic ones by gradually training you to notice when a sentence doesn't quite look right.

One common marker of AI text, according to Ippolito, is nonsensical statements like "it takes two hours to make a cup of coffee." Ippolito's game is largely focused on helping people detect those kinds of errors. In fact, there have been multiple instances of an AI writing program stating inaccurate facts with total confidence --- you probably shouldn't ask it to do your math assignment , either, as it doesn't seem to handle numerical calculations very well.

Right now, these are the best detection methods we have to catch text written by an AI program. Language models are getting better at a speed that renders current detection methods outdated pretty quickly, however, leaving us in, as Melissa Heikkilä writes for MIT Technology Review, an arms race.

Related: How to Fact-Check ChatGPT With Bing AI Chat

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How To Identify and Detect Writing Made with ChatGPT

With the recent surge in AI-made content, people across the world are having existential crises trying to figure out what’s real and what’s fake. I mean... have you seen deepfakes recently?

In the writing realm, ChatGPT has exploded since its release, months hitting a million users within the first week of its launch and currently boasting over 100 million.

After people wrapped their heads around what this actually is, it left tons of people trying to figure out how to reverse-engineer artificially produced writing. And it's fairly simple too.

Here are a few tools and tips you can follow to help figure out whether you're looking at a human’s writing or ChatGPT’s.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a casual-speaking, large language model created by OpenAI – the team behind DALL-E 2 . You might've heard about it on TikTok, Twitter, or a few months ago when the NYC public school system banned the entire thing .

The goal of ChatGPT is to combine AI with casual conversation. You simply ask it any question you want and you'll get a customized response. You can ask it things like:

• Can you write me an essay about the industrial revolution, in the style of a southern boy in the 1900s?
• What is the meaning of life and how can we find purpose in our existence?
• Write me a workout plan for the next 6 months that focus heavily on legs. I weigh 180 lbs and am 5'11.
• Can you write me marketing copy for a company that sells glow-in-the-dark crayons?

It's kind of crazy. Here's an example:

How Does Artificial Intelligence Work?

AI tools are like computer brains trained using heaps of data, helping them spot patterns in text after reading countless articles.

Imagine AI as a computer buddy named Robby who wants to learn chess. You teach him the basics, then he plays against others. The more he plays, the better he gets.

What makes Robby smart? Algorithms – they're like instructions for decision-making. A special type called "machine learning" lets Robby improve over time. He uses "training data," which are examples of good chess moves, to become better.

The more examples Robby sees, the smarter his moves become.

How Do You Detect ChatGPT?

Teachers, students, business owners, freelance writers, and pretty much anyone else in between has been trying to figure out if a piece of writing they've come across (or wrote) has been created by ChatGPT.

It's not easy to figure out, and it's also not 100% accurate. You're looking at words on a computer screen, and words leave no trail.

The issue is ChatGPT [currently] produces no watermark on the content it produces. If you ask it a question, you could simply copy and paste it & do as you wish. It's not like plagiarism which has actual sources you can the backtrack writing to. I'm not sure if OpenAI will even be able to watermark ChatGPT, we'll have to wait..

Some of the best AI detection tools for teachers don't even fully rely on scanning for AI. They check plagiarism, AI detection, and replay the writing to see if a lot of copy/pasting was involved. Even though tools are getting better by the day, it's all still based on prediction.

But these tools do showcase a fairly solid way to help predict AI-writing, especially writing produced ChatGPT, and that's by looking really close into patterns.

Once you have an essay written (like a 1200-word piece about the industrial revolution) how do you actually check where it came from?

How AI Detection Works

Tools that predict AI analyze how likely each word would be predicted next, based on the previous context of words to the left. We wrote a more in-depth explanation if you want to take a deep dive.

AI-generated articles tend to have a certain level of polish and consistency that is often associated with perfection. They are designed to adhere to grammatical rules and maintain a structured flow. However, this perfection often comes at the cost of creativity and the human touch. Humans make mistakes, AI writing is engineered to be objectively "perfect."

Look Out For Uncanny, Polished Language

AI tools like ChatGPT are trained using heaps of data, helping them spot patterns in text after reading countless articles. Essentially, it doesn’t “think” or “feel” in the way humans do. But instead processes and reproduces patterns from vast datasets.

Take this generated writing for example:

It’s alright, but it sounds too vague and generic. The language itself feels off and the almost human-like tone is treading into this uncanny valley territory. 

From my experience, there are a few indicators that tell me intuitively a writing is likely AI-generated:

• Complex vocabulary and jargon is used.
• The tone used is often too formal.
• The content lacks depth and solely relies on surface-level information.
• The sentence structure and length is predictably consistent and lengthy.

However, this is often not a definitive way to detect ChatGPT. 

If one is excellent at prompt engineering , they can easily curate an output that sounds less “robotic”. And with AI technology constantly improving and updating, this is certainly a feat that’s currently being worked on with ChatGPT-4 .

The Best ChatGPT AI Writing Detection Tools

So what else can we do? Use AI to spot another AI.

Please keep in mind there is no mathematically definite way to confirm AI-generated writing and that all of these tools work on predictions, but they are decent indicators.

Here are my top picks after analyzing detectors for months on end:

Tool 1: Undetectable.AI

I really like Undetectable because they made a tool that analyzes every other detector you'll run into online. They created their own detectors by sampling the models of a bunch of existing ones. It's a great way to combine some of the most popular tools into one.

They run your writing through some of the most popular AI detection tools like Content At Scale and GPTZero (which we'll get into later) by analyzing how those tools would classify your writing if you tested them individually. They base this on thousands of writing samples.

I've noticed both Undetectable and Content at Scale are fairly conservative with their predictions & try not to false flag anyone. But always take these results with a grain of salt.

I also like the fact that Undetectable tries to be hesitant about writing. I don't think you should classify AI writing unless you're fairly confident about it.

You open up massive problems like what's happening with schools that implemented TurnItIn's very own detection tools . Students are getting written up for using AI when they haven't. It's failing students, impacting their chances of getting into college, and creating a bitter relationship between students and teachers. All based on something you can't truly "prove." AI detection should be speculative, but that's a story for another day.

To use Undetectable , paste a sample of your writing into the tool, agree with the terms of service, then click "check for AI"

In a few seconds you'll see the result of your writing get thrown through a bunch of other AI detection models and predict the likelihood that you'd get picked up by them. It's that easy:

Tool 2: CopyLeaks

CopyLeaks is probably the most straightforward & fairly strict AI detection tool. It detects ChatGPT-generated writing regardless of which model somebody is using. It's quick, free, and I'd consider it to be reliable.

They also are pretty good at figuring text that's in the middle (writing that is a mix of ChatGPT & human writing).

Paste your writing, press check, give it a few seconds, and you'll have a result. Here’s what it looks like:

Tool 3: Originality AI

While CopyLeaks is meant for testing quick content (and it does it pretty well), Originality AI does have the tendency to over-predict at times, which I don't like.

Originality AI is better for industry-level & bulk testing. It works the same as all the other tools: Copy & paste suspected ChatGPT content and let it do the rest of the work for you. However, you’ll need to subscribe to their paid plans to use it. If you want to read an in-depth review of how Originality AI works, we broke it down in this review .

For the free version, they have a Chrome extension browser you can try out. After installing, it can scan up to a maximum of 5000 words (1 credit per 100 words). It will display a percentage showing if a text is more or less likely to have been written by an AI or human. 

Also, with all types of AI detectors, the more writing Originality AI has to work with and analyze, the more reliable of a prediction you'll have. It's safer to say 10 AI-written verdicts on the same writer are a lot more reliable of a prediction than a single declaration. 

So remember to do more testing than submit a single writing sample and base an entire decision on that.

I'd say my favorite feature in Originality is the writing visualizer .

It works by re-typing the article directly in front of you.

For it to work, you need to have access to a Google doc with editing permissions enabled. Simply install the chrome extension & visualize the writing.

You'll see the article get crafted back right in front of you. SUPER useful if you want to try to catch people copy and pasting ChatGPT content directly into a paper. There's no other tool that comes as close to Originality in that regard – & I use it all the time.

Tool 4: Content At Scale

The next tool you could use to check for ChatGPT is using Content at Scale's AI Detector .

I've been using this tool from the very day it was released and love it because it tends to not "over-predict" writing. It's also completely free.

I'd rather let some AI get through if it meant not flagging someone on accident. If you want a more strict tool, Originality is probably the better choice.

Here's an example of a snippet I generated using ChatGPT & pasted directly into their tool:

Paste it in the tool, wait about 5-10 seconds, and you'll get a line-by-line breakdown on top of a percentage about if it was written by ChatGPT.

Once submitted, you'll see this content was very likely to be written by AI. The content was easily predictable, followed a lot of patterns, and wrote probable content.

The more content you test from the same author (and length) will increase the likelihood of these prediction results being reliable. I'd still recommend taking these with a grain of salt.

Content at Scale will also highlight each line it believes to be written by ChatGPT (the orange text on the right). In this case, it was the entire piece! (which is true in this example)

Here's an example of what my writing from the last paragraph outputted when using C@S:

I'm glad I'm a human... ha!

If you need something more strict though, maybe something a little harder on both ChatGPT writing & plagiarism, look into Originality .

Tool 5: Gold Penguin's AI Detector

Yes... we actually made one ourselves! After testing these tools throughout the last few months it was only a matter of time. I decided to list our AI writing detection tool last because it generally under-predicts AI writing.

We created it to minimize the risk of falsely flagging someone as using ChatGPT to write something. Some of the other detectors have been caught flagging the constitution of the United States as being AI-written! That's insane!

Anyways, our tool is free & extremely simple to use. Just paste the text into the input box and check for AI:

It Started with GLTR

You used to be able to run any text through GLTR . It was the start of AI detection before that really become a thing. It was trained on GPT-2 years ago. It worked as a free tool and to see a "heatmap" type of diagram showing AI predictability.

Here's AI content compared to a professional academic article. The darker words mean the more predicable they are:

While it doesn't work anymore (presumably because it wasn't reliable as AI writing got better) it helps visually explain what AI detection really is.

Can Teachers and Professors Detect ChatGPT?

They can't prove it, but can get a fairly decent inclination, especially based on repeated samples of writing. The most reliable way would be testing multiple samples of a students writing through different AI detectors & writing visualizers , but there's no foolproof method.

You're looking at words on a screen when you really think about it. The only way teachers, professors, and other educators can really get around the ChatGPT craze is to have students complete writings on paper, in class.

Does ChatGPT Have a Watermark?

No. And it might not be possible. See our article on them disabling their very own detector.

As of the moment, it is only currently being applied to images generated in Dall-E 3 . But it is doing rather poorly because of how insanely easy it is to remove them .

What's Next?

It's hard to tell, I don't really know. Of course there are still many things ChatGPT cannot accomplish, but it seems overnight we've upgraded societies technical skills. The education or professional industry won't be ruined because of this – but it'll certainly cause a disruption .

Remember to take any result with a grain of salt, as no tool can 100% determine if AI was used to generate if ChatGPT wrote something. Use your best judgment and always use more than one route when determining the likelihood of something being written by ChatGPT. Also, this article wasn't pro or anti-AI but rather an educational piece describing a few ways to detect it. The next few years will certainly be exciting!

Related Articles

GPT Essay Checker for Students

How to Interpret the Result of AI Detection

To use our GPT checker, you won’t need to do any preparation work!

Take the 3 steps:

• Copy and paste the text you want to be analyzed,
• Click the button,
• Follow the prompts to interpret the result.

Our AI detector doesn’t give a definitive answer. It’s only a free beta test that will be improved later. For now, it provides a preliminary conclusion and analyzes the provided text, implementing the color-coding system that you can see above the analysis.

It is you who decides whether the text is written by a human or AI:

• Your text was likely generated by an AI if it is mostly red with some orange words. This means that the word choice of the whole document is nowhere near unique or unpredictable.
• Your text looks unique and human-made if our GPT essay checker adds plenty of orange, green, and blue to the color palette.
• 🔮 The Tool’s Benefits

🤖 Will AI Replace Human Writers?

✅ ai in essay writing.

• 🕵 How do GPT checkers work?

🔗 References

🔮 gpt checker for essays: 5 key benefits.

People have yet to learn where AI and machine learning are taking us, but it has already caused many problems in the education system. This AI essay detector can resolve some of them, at least as of the moment.

There are 5 key benefits of the above GPT checker for essays and other academic writing projects.

Elon Musk, one of Chat GPT creators, said that it was “scary good” and that humanity is approaching the creation of “dangerously strong AI.”

In an interview , Bill Gates commented on the program: “It gives a glimpse of what is to come. I am impressed with this whole approach and the rate of innovation.” And these words give us goosebumps.

Over the first week of its functioning, the program exceeded 1 million users . Therefore, developers are interested in monetizing it, and launching a paid Beta-version won’t take long.

We prefer not to throw out compliments to the chatbot and instead let you check for yourself . It is a chat with AI. The best way to start is to ask a question. It is free so far (still under research), so you can ask as many questions as you please.

We should care about AI-generated content because, in a decade, it will be an everyday reality. Even more so, it is a hot-button issue now. For now, GPT 3 can’t replace human writers. However, AI essay detection has already become an issue for teachers.

You can try asking ChatGPT to write an essay for you. But we do not recommend pass it off as written by you. Not only because it's unethical (although it is). The fact is that ChatGPT has a number of drawbacks that you need to consider before using it.

Chat GPT in Essay Writing – the Shortcomings

• The tool doesn’t know anything about what happened after 2021. Novel history is not its strong side. Sometimes it needs to be corrected about earlier events. For instance, request information about Heathrow Terminal 1 . The program will tell you it is functioning, although it has been closed since 2015.
• The reliability of answers is questionable. AI takes information from the web which abounds in fake news, bias, and conspiracy theories.
• References also need to be checked. The links that the tool generates are sometimes incorrect, and sometimes even fake.
• Two AI generated essays on the same topic can be very similar. Although a plagiarism checker will likely consider the texts original, your teacher will easily see the same structure and arguments.
• Chat GPT essay detectors are being actively developed now. Traditional plagiarism checkers are not good at finding texts made by ChatGPT. But this does not mean that an AI-generated piece cannot be detected at all.

🕵 How Do GPT Checkers Work?

An AI-generated text is too predictable. Its creation is based on the word frequency in each particular case.

Thus, its strong side (being life-like) makes it easily discernible for ChatGPT detectors.

Once again, conventional anti-plagiarism essay checkers won’t work there merely because this writing features originality. Meanwhile, it will be too similar to hundreds of other texts covering the same topic.

Here’s an everyday example. Two people give birth to a baby. When kids become adults, they are very much like their parents. But can we tell this particular human is a child of the other two humans? No, if we cannot make a genetic test. This GPT essay checker is a paternity test for written content.

❓ GPT Essay Checker FAQ

Updated: Oct 25th, 2023

• Abstracts written by ChatGPT fool scientists - Nature
• How to... use ChatGPT to boost your writing
• Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? - The Atlantic
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This page contains a free online GPT checker for essays and other academic writing projects. Being based on the brand-new technology, this AI essay detector is much more effective than traditional plagiarism checkers. With this AI checker, you’ll easily find out if an academic writing piece was written by a human or a chatbot. We provide a comprehensive guide on how to interpret the results of analysis. It is up to you to draw your own conclusions.

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Check if Something Was Written by ChatGPT: AI Detection Guide

Last Updated: April 25, 2024 Fact Checked

How AI Detection Tools Work

Using ai detection tools, signs of chatgpt use.

This article was written by Stan Kats and by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA . Stan Kats is the COO and Chief Technologist for The STG IT Consulting Group in West Hollywood, California. Stan provides comprehensive technology & cybersecurity solutions to businesses through managed IT services, and for individuals through his consumer service business, Stan's Tech Garage. Stan has over 7 years of cybersecurity experience, holding senior positions in information security at General Motors, AIG, and Aramark over his career. Stan received a BA in International Relations from The University of Southern California. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 44,598 times.

With the rising popularity of ChatGPT, Bard, and other AI chatbots, it can be hard to tell whether a piece of writing was created by a human or AI. There are many AI detection tools available, but the truth is, many of these tools can produce both false-positive and false-negative results in essays, articles, cover letters, and other content. Fortunately, there are still reliable ways to tell whether a piece of writing was generated by ChatGPT or written by a human. This wikiHow article will cover the best AI detection tools for teachers, students, and other curious users, and provide helpful tricks for spotting AI-written content by sight.

Things You Should Know

• Tools like OpenAI's Text Classifier, GPTZero, and Copyleaks can check writing for ChatGPT, LLaMA, and other AI language model use.
• ChatGPT often produces writing that looks "perfect" on the surface but contains false information.
• Some signs that ChatGPT did the writing: A lack of descriptive language, words like "firstly" and "secondly," and sentences that look right but don't make sense.

• The detection tool compares a piece of writing to similar content, decides how predictable the text is, and labels the text as either human or AI-generated.
• These tools also look for other indicators, or "signatures" that are associated with AI-generated text, such as word choice and patterns. [1] X Research source

• If an AI detection tool reports that a piece of writing was mostly AI-generated, don't rely on that report alone. It's best to only use AI detection tools if you've already found other signs that the writing was written by ChatGPT. [3] X Research source
• Running a piece of writing through multiple AI detection tools can help you get an idea of how different tools work. It can also help you narrow down false-negatives and false-positives.

• If you're evaluating a piece of writing for potential AI use, try searching the web for a few facts from the text. Try to search for facts that are easy to verify—e.g., dates and specific events.

• For example, if you're evaluating a cover letter for AI use, you might tell ChatGPT, "Write me a cover letter for a junior developer position at Company X. Explain that I graduated from Rutgers with a Computer Science degree, love JavaScript and Ruby, and have been working as a barista for the past year."
• Because ChatGPT is conversational, you can continue providing more context. For example, "add something to the cover letter about not jumping right into the industry after college because of the pandemic."

Expert Q&A

• Cornell researchers determined that humans incorrectly found AI-generated news articles credible more than 60% of the time. [12] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you're using a ChatGPT detection tool that identified writing as AI-written, consider that it may be a false positive before approaching the situation with the writer. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you suspect ChatGPT wrote something but can't tell for sure, have a conversation with the writer. Don't accuse them of using ChatGPT—instead, ask them more questions about the writing or content to make their knowledge lines up with the content. You may also want to ask them about their writing process to see if they admit to using ChatGPT or other AI writing tools. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.turnitin.com/blog/ai-writing-the-challenge-and-opportunity-in-front-of-education-now
• ↑ https://www.turnitin.com/blog/understanding-false-positives-within-our-ai-writing-detection-capabilities
• ↑ https://help.openai.com/en/collections/5929286-educator-faq
• ↑ https://www.npr.org/2023/01/09/1147549845/gptzero-ai-chatgpt-edward-tian-plagiarism
• ↑ https://app.gptzero.me/app/subscription-plans
• ↑ https://contentatscale.ai/ai-content-detector/
• ↑ https://copyleaks.com/api-pricing
• ↑ https://research.google/pubs/pub51844/
• ↑ https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6783457-what-is-chatgpt
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9939079/
• ↑ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065596/how-to-spot-ai-generated-text/

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A college student created an app that can tell whether AI wrote an essay

Emma Bowman

GPTZero in action: The bot correctly detected AI-written text. The writing sample that was submitted? ChatGPT's attempt at "an essay on the ethics of AI plagiarism that could pass a ChatGPT detector tool." GPTZero.me/Screenshot by NPR hide caption

GPTZero in action: The bot correctly detected AI-written text. The writing sample that was submitted? ChatGPT's attempt at "an essay on the ethics of AI plagiarism that could pass a ChatGPT detector tool."

Teachers worried about students turning in essays written by a popular artificial intelligence chatbot now have a new tool of their own.

Edward Tian, a 22-year-old senior at Princeton University, has built an app to detect whether text is written by ChatGPT, the viral chatbot that's sparked fears over its potential for unethical uses in academia.

Edward Tian, a 22-year-old computer science student at Princeton, created an app that detects essays written by the impressive AI-powered language model known as ChatGPT. Edward Tian hide caption

Edward Tian, a 22-year-old computer science student at Princeton, created an app that detects essays written by the impressive AI-powered language model known as ChatGPT.

Tian, a computer science major who is minoring in journalism, spent part of his winter break creating GPTZero, which he said can "quickly and efficiently" decipher whether a human or ChatGPT authored an essay.

His motivation to create the bot was to fight what he sees as an increase in AI plagiarism. Since the release of ChatGPT in late November, there have been reports of students using the breakthrough language model to pass off AI-written assignments as their own.

"there's so much chatgpt hype going around. is this and that written by AI? we as humans deserve to know!" Tian wrote in a tweet introducing GPTZero.

Tian said many teachers have reached out to him after he released his bot online on Jan. 2, telling him about the positive results they've seen from testing it.

More than 30,000 people had tried out GPTZero within a week of its launch. It was so popular that the app crashed. Streamlit, the free platform that hosts GPTZero, has since stepped in to support Tian with more memory and resources to handle the web traffic.

How GPTZero works

To determine whether an excerpt is written by a bot, GPTZero uses two indicators: "perplexity" and "burstiness." Perplexity measures the complexity of text; if GPTZero is perplexed by the text, then it has a high complexity and it's more likely to be human-written. However, if the text is more familiar to the bot — because it's been trained on such data — then it will have low complexity and therefore is more likely to be AI-generated.

Separately, burstiness compares the variations of sentences. Humans tend to write with greater burstiness, for example, with some longer or complex sentences alongside shorter ones. AI sentences tend to be more uniform.

In a demonstration video, Tian compared the app's analysis of a story in The New Yorker and a LinkedIn post written by ChatGPT. It successfully distinguished writing by a human versus AI.

A new AI chatbot might do your homework for you. But it's still not an A+ student

Tian acknowledged that his bot isn't foolproof, as some users have reported when putting it to the test. He said he's still working to improve the model's accuracy.

But by designing an app that sheds some light on what separates human from AI, the tool helps work toward a core mission for Tian: bringing transparency to AI.

"For so long, AI has been a black box where we really don't know what's going on inside," he said. "And with GPTZero, I wanted to start pushing back and fighting against that."

The quest to curb AI plagiarism

Untangling Disinformation

Ai-generated fake faces have become a hallmark of online influence operations.

The college senior isn't alone in the race to rein in AI plagiarism and forgery. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has signaled a commitment to preventing AI plagiarism and other nefarious applications. Last month, Scott Aaronson, a researcher currently focusing on AI safety at OpenAI, revealed that the company has been working on a way to "watermark" GPT-generated text with an "unnoticeable secret signal" to identify its source.

The open-source AI community Hugging Face has put out a tool to detect whether text was created by GPT-2, an earlier version of the AI model used to make ChatGPT. A philosophy professor in South Carolina who happened to know about the tool said he used it to catch a student submitting AI-written work.

The New York City education department said on Thursday that it's blocking access to ChatGPT on school networks and devices over concerns about its "negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content."

Tian is not opposed to the use of AI tools like ChatGPT.

GPTZero is "not meant to be a tool to stop these technologies from being used," he said. "But with any new technologies, we need to be able to adopt it responsibly and we need to have safeguards."

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Chat GPT Detector for Essays

Understanding the results.

Once you click “Check the text,” you will see a bar chart and a detailed analysis of the text.

The bar chart displays the proportions of words in the text based on how likely an AI generator would use them in a similar context:

• The red column shows the percentage of words an AI generator would most probably use to write a text on your topic.
• The orange column shows the proportion of words that a GPT generator would sometimes use.
• The green column displays the percentage of words that an AI tool would rarely use while generating a similar text.
• The violet column displays the share of the least predictable words that a GPT writer would almost never use.

Under the bar chart, you will find a detailed analysis of the text. All words will be colored according to the categories they belong to. By clicking on each word, you’ll be able to see its probability of being used by a chatbot, as well as the top-5 most likely alternatives.

An AI-generated text will be colored mostly red and orange. In contrast, a paper written by a human will contain green and violet words.

• ️✅ The Tool's Benefits
• ️🤖 Why Is ChatGPT Detection Important?
• ️❌ AI Text Generators Limitations
• ️🔎 AI Detection: Is It Possible for Now?
• ️🔗 References

✅ Chat GPT Detector Benefits

🛠️ chat gpt essay detector: how does it work.

To use the tool, take the 4 steps below:

• Add the content in question (up to 4500 characters).
• Input its topic, title, or short description (optional).
• Click “Check the text”.
• Get a detailed analysis for free.

Automatically generated texts have become a considerable problem for teachers in 2023. Developing an accurate AI essay detector is the hottest research area now. The Chat GPT detector we’ve made is an instrument that shows the probability for a text to be AI-generated.

The tool’s functioning is effortless:

Enter the text, press the button, and check the result.

The Chat GPT checker will analyze the piece in detail, showing the proportions of words in the text based on how likely an AI writer would use them. As a result, you can edit the most predictable words and sentences if needed, making the text look 100% human-written.

🤖 Chat GPT Detectors: Why Are They So Important?

Chat GPT, created by OpenAI , has been a pain in the neck for teachers since its creation.

The tool is what our parents considered science fiction. It generates custom-made answers to specific questions and can take your prompts into account.

An unprecedented threat is looming over the conventional system of education in general and independent writing assignments in particular. How can we assess and develop students’ problem-solving and critical thinking?

Chat GPT can find and compile facts, use various pre-set writing styles, and produce convincing, logical arguments. To make it even better (and worse!), it has impeccable grammar, although users can choose to add grammatical errors for credibility. Last but not least, for now AI essay detection is problematic, because traditional plagiarism detectors fail to identify Chat GPT generated papers correctly.

The first decision came: NYC blocked Chat GPT on campuses , and other education departments will soon follow them. But no one can control non-educational Internet networks and devices.

We are standing on the verge of the “Big Bang” in our perception of education methodology. Here’s what can happen:

• Most likely, educators will have to move away from formulaic writing with strict rubrics.
• Colleges won’t dedicate as much time to theoretical knowledge and give more ways to practice.
• Students will be encouraged to explore information worth knowing.
• Specific homework assignments will become outdated.
• Creativity will become more critical than knowledge.
• All schools will use ChatGPT essay detectors like they used plagiarism detectors in the era of Google.

❌ Chat GPT Essay Writing: Limitations and Ethical Issues

ChatGPT is impressive but not flawless. As of the moment, it has such limitations.

Chat GPT Essay Writing Limitations

• Don’t expect it to answer questions about what happened after 2021 . For example, it doesn’t know much about Biden’s presidency, Omicron, the Russian invasion of Ukraine , or the death of Queen Elizabeth II. That's why you shouldn’t ask GPT-3 to write an essay on, let’s say, Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• ChatGPT isn’t able to keep up with the latest events . Training the tool on this information takes time. Perhaps, software engineers will eventually solve this issue.
• It can generate incorrect texts if it gets the question wrong. You took it right. It is a human-like intelligence, and mutual misunderstanding is in our veins. But paraphrasing the query can improve the result.
• Adding too many parameters, getting niche, or asking tricky questions overwhelms the program . It will give inappropriate answers or ignore parts of your request.
• It can use offensive language like all of us in some cases.

AI Essay Writing: Ethical Issues

The ethical issues of AI essay writers are also explicit.

AI nominally filters out requests in writing that go against the service’s policy. That’s why you won’t be able to produce harmful content using the program. Meanwhile, merely asking it to help generate a text from a racist’s point of view is acceptable and doable.

The program takes concepts and words from a dataset containing texts from the Internet. The latter has never been a peaceful and ethical place. So, despite an astonishing understanding of moral issues the AI has demonstrated, it can use human biases and stereotypes, purposefully or not. It can neither differentiate fake news nor conspiracy theories.

In this aspect, developers have a long way to go.

🔎 AI Essay Detector: Does it Work?

AI detection is hardly possible for the human eye. The only difference is that computer-generated texts stick to the most likely word. Meanwhile, people often choose unpredictable words that still make sense to a knowledgeable audience.

But one cannot fool a computer. This AI detector for essays shows how likely a text has been machine-generated or written by a human. Once again, the more predictable the choice of words, the more artificial it looks.

❓ AI Essay Detector FAQ

❓ what content types can i generate using ai.

AI can generate literally any content except for harmful and offensive statements. Still, its truthfulness is questionable. AI cannot tell fake news from real ones and conspiracy theories from reality. Neither can it filter out the bias that prevails on the internet.

❓ How To Generate Content Using AI?

If you would like to generate content using AI, use ChatGPT. It can create anything from an essay to answers to complicated moral dilemmas. Enter your query into the indicated field, and press the respective button to see the result. If it does not meet your expectations, modify the question.

❓ How To Detect AI Generated Content?

You cannot detect AI-generated content without dedicated software. I.e., our brain sees no difference between human-made and artificial texts. This AI detection tool will help you determine whether the text was written by hand or by code. Just copy the text into the program and check the result.

❓ How Does a Chat GPT Essay Detector Work?

A ChatGPT detector works similarly to AI text generators. It analyses the predictability of each word in a sentence. If the selection is highly predictable, AI has created the text. The more terms are used in unusual places, the more life-like the text is.

🔗 References

• The Limitations of Chat-GPT - Medium
• 5 Big Problems With OpenAI's ChatGPT - MakeUseOf
• What is GPT-3? Everything You Need to Know - TechTarget
• Meet GPT-3. It Has Learned to Code (and Blog and Argue).
• What is Natural Language Processing? An Introduction to NLP

A Princeton student built an app which can detect if ChatGPT wrote an essay to combat AI-based plagiarism

• A Princeton student built an app that aims to tell if essays were written by AIs like ChatGPT.
• The app analyzes text to see how randomly it is written, allowing it to detect if it was written by AI.
• The website hosting the app, built by Edward Tian, crashed due to high traffic.

A new app can detect whether your essay was written by ChatGPT, as researchers look to combat AI plagiarism.

Edward Tian, a computer science student at Princeton, said he spent the holiday period building GPTZero.

Related stories

He shared two videos comparing the app's analysis of a New Yorker article and a letter written by ChatGPT. It correctly identified that they were respectively written by a human and AI.

—Edward Tian (@edward_the6) January 3, 2023

GPTZero scores text on its "perplexity and burstiness" – referring to how complicated it is and how randomly it is written. 

The app was so popular that it crashed "due to unexpectedly high web traffic," and currently displays a beta-signup page . GPTZero is still available to use on Tian's Streamlit page, after the website hosts stepped in to increase its capacity.

Tian, a former data journalist with the BBC, said that he was motivated to build GPTZero after seeing increased instances of AI plagiarism.

"Are high school teachers going to want students using ChatGPT to write their history essays? Likely not," he tweeted.

The Guardian recently reported that ChatGPT is introducing its own system to combat plagiarism by making it easier to identify, and watermarking the bot's output.

That follows The New York Times' report that Google issued a "code red" alert over the AI's popularity.  

Insider's Beatrice Nolan also tested ChatGPT to write cover letters for job applications , with one hiring manager saying she'd have got an interview, though another said the letter lacked personality.

Tian added that he's planning to publish a paper with accuracy stats using student journalism articles as data, alongside Princeton's Natural Language Processing group. 

OpenAI and Tian didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, sent outside US working hours. 

Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, has a global deal to allow OpenAI to train its models on its media brands' reporting.

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College student claims app can detect essays written by chatbot ChatGPT

Princeton senior Edward Tian says GPTZero can root out text composed by the controversial AI bot, but users cite mixed results

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A 22-year-old college student has developed an app which he claims can detect whether text is written by ChatGPT, the explosive chatbot raising fears of plagiarism in academia.

Edward Tian, a senior at Princeton University, developed GPTZero over a summer break. It had 30,000 hits within a week of its launch.

Tian said the motivation was to address the use of artificial intelligence to evade anti-plagiarism software to cheat in exams with quick and credible academic writing.

His initial tweet, which claimed the app could “quickly and efficiently” detect whether an essay had been written by artificial intelligence, went viral with more than 5m views.

I spent New Years building GPTZero — an app that can quickly and efficiently detect whether an essay is ChatGPT or human written — Edward Tian (@edward_the6) January 3, 2023

Streamlit, the free platform that hosts GPTZero, has since supported Tian with hosting and memory capabilities to keep up with web traffic.

To determine whether text was written by artificial intelligence, the app tests a calculation of “perplexity” – which measures the complexity of a text, and “burstiness” – which compares the variation of sentences.

The more familiar the text is to the bot – which is trained on similar data – the likelier it is to be generated by AI.

here's a demo with @nandoodles 's Linkedin post that used ChatGPT to successfully respond to Danish programmer David Hansson's opinions pic.twitter.com/5szgLIQdeN — Edward Tian (@edward_the6) January 3, 2023

Tian told subscribers the newer model used the same principles, but with an improved capacity to detect artificial intelligence in text.

“Through testing the new model on a dataset of BBC news articles and AI generated articles from the same headlines prompts, the improved model has a false positive rate of < 2%,” he said.

“The coming months, I’ll be completely focused on building GPTZero, improving the model capabilities, and scaling the app out fully.”

Toby Walsh, Scientia professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, wasn’t convinced.

He said unless the app was picked up by a major company, it was unlikely to have an impact on ChatGPT’s capacity to be used for plagiarising.

“It’s always an arms race between tech to identify synthetic text and the apps,” he said. “And it’s quite easy to ask ChatGPT to rewrite in a more personable style … like rephrasing as an 11-year-old.

“This will make it harder, but it won’t stop it.”

Walsh said users could also ask ChatGPT to add more “randomness” into text to evade censors, and obfuscate with different synonyms and grammatical edits.

Meanwhile, he said each app developed to spot synthetic texts gave greater ability for artificial intelligence programs to evade detection.

And each time a user logged on to ChatGPT, it was generating human feedback to improve filters, both implicitly and explicitly.

“There’s a deep fundamental technical reason we’ll never win the arms race,” Walsh said.

“Every program used to identify synthetic text can be added to [the original program] to generate synthetic text to fool them … it’s always the case.

“We are training it but it’s getting better by the day.”

Users of GPTZero have cited mixed results.

GPTZero is a proposed anti-plagiarism tool that claims to be able to detect ChatGPT-generated text. Here's how it did on the first prompt I tried. https://t.co/ZmisoZt0uO pic.twitter.com/RhNU7B4k7B — Riley Goodside (@goodside) January 4, 2023

“It seemed like it was working on - and it does work for texts which are generated by GPT models entirely or generated with semi-human intervention,” one subscriber wrote.

“However … it does not work well with essays written by good writers. It false flagged so many essays as AI-written.

“This is at the same time a very useful tool for professors, and on the other hand a very dangerous tool - trusting it too much would lead to exacerbation of the false flags.”

“Nice attempt, but ChatGPT is so good at what it does,” another subscriber wrote.

“I have pasted in roughly 350 words of French … mostly generated by ChatGPT. The text is slightly manually edited for a better style, and generated with a strong, enforced context leading to the presence of proper nouns.

“That text passes the GPTZero test as human … I am not totally convinced that proper human-AI cooperation can be flagged.”

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Our ChatGPT essay checker can easily detect the use of this technology so that you can be sure what was artificially created with the help of this algorithm.

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7 Surefire Signs That ChatGPT Has Written an Essay Revealed

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have revealed the seven telltale signs that a piece of written content was generated by ChatGPT , after carefully analyzing more than 150 essays written by high school students and undergraduates.

They found that ChatGPT loves an Oxford Comma, repeats phrases and spits out tautological statements practically empty of meaning at a much higher frequency than humans.

While the findings are interesting, the sample size is quite small. There’s also no guarantee that the linguistic habits and techniques identified couldn’t and wouldn’t be used by a human. What’s more, AI content detection tools are largely unreliable; there’s still no way to know for certain that any given written content is AI-generated.

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The 7 Telltale Signs Content is AI-Generated

The researchers at Cambridge analyzed 164 essays written by high school students with four essays written with a helping hand from ChatGPT.

The ChatGPT-assisted essays were generally more information-heavy and had more reflective elements, but the markers at Cambridge found that they lacked the level of comparison and analysis typically found in human-generated content. 

According to UK-based publication The Telegraph , which broke the story, the researchers identified seven key indicators of AI content:

• Frequent use of Latin root words and “vocabulary above the expected level”
• Paragraphs starting with singular words like “however”, and then a comma 
• Lots of numbered lists with colons
• Unnecessary clarificatory language (e.g. “true fact”)
• Tautological language (“Lets come together to unite”)
• Repetition of the same word or phrase twice 
• Consistent and frequent use of Oxford commas in sentences

Are There Any Other Ways to Spot ChatGPT Plagiarism?

Yes and no. There are many tools online that claim to be able to detect AI content, but when I tested a wide range of them last year, I found many to be wildly inaccurate.

For instance, OpenAI’s own text classifier – which was eventually shut down because it performed so poorly – was unable to identify that text written by ChatGPT (effectively itself) was AI-generated.

Even Turnitin has been using automated processes to detect plagiarized content in academic work for years, and they’ve also developed a powerful AI content checker. The company has always maintained that verdicts arrived at by their tools should be treated as an indication, not a cast-iron accusation.

“Given that our false positive rate is not zero” Turnitin explains in a blog post discussing its AI content detection capabilities.

“You as the instructor will need to apply your professional judgment, knowledge of your students, and the specific context surrounding the assignment”.

None of these tools are infallible – and worse still, many of the free ones you’ll find lurking at the top of the Google Search results are completely and utterly useless.

Is It Wrong to Use AI for School or College Work?

While asking AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to write you an essay isn’t quite “plagiarism” in the same way copying content written by other people and passing it off as your own is, it’s certainly not advised.

Whether it’s objectively plagiarism or not is likely irrelevant – the educational institution you’re enrolled in has probably created guidelines explicitly banning generative AI. Many universities have already taken a similar approach to peer review and other academic processes.

Besides, the whole point of writing an essay is to consider the range of ideas and views on the topic you’re writing about and evaluate them using your head. Getting an AI to do it for you defeats the whole point of writing the essay in the first place.

Our advice – considering the consequences of being accused of plagiarism while at university – is to stick to the rules. Who knows – you might learn something while you’re at it!

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Should I Use ChatGPT to Write My Essays?

Everything high school and college students need to know about using — and not using — ChatGPT for writing essays.

Jessica A. Kent

ChatGPT is one of the most buzzworthy technologies today.

In addition to other generative artificial intelligence (AI) models, it is expected to change the world. In academia, students and professors are preparing for the ways that ChatGPT will shape education, and especially how it will impact a fundamental element of any course: the academic essay.

Students can use ChatGPT to generate full essays based on a few simple prompts. But can AI actually produce high quality work, or is the technology just not there yet to deliver on its promise? Students may also be asking themselves if they should use AI to write their essays for them and what they might be losing out on if they did.

AI is here to stay, and it can either be a help or a hindrance depending on how you use it. Read on to become better informed about what ChatGPT can and can’t do, how to use it responsibly to support your academic assignments, and the benefits of writing your own essays.

What is Generative AI?

Artificial intelligence isn’t a twenty-first century invention. Beginning in the 1950s, data scientists started programming computers to solve problems and understand spoken language. AI’s capabilities grew as computer speeds increased and today we use AI for data analysis, finding patterns, and providing insights on the data it collects.

But why the sudden popularity in recent applications like ChatGPT? This new generation of AI goes further than just data analysis. Instead, generative AI creates new content. It does this by analyzing large amounts of data — GPT-3 was trained on 45 terabytes of data, or a quarter of the Library of Congress — and then generating new content based on the patterns it sees in the original data.

It’s like the predictive text feature on your phone; as you start typing a new message, predictive text makes suggestions of what should come next based on data from past conversations. Similarly, ChatGPT creates new text based on past data. With the right prompts, ChatGPT can write marketing content, code, business forecasts, and even entire academic essays on any subject within seconds.

But is generative AI as revolutionary as people think it is, or is it lacking in real intelligence?

The Drawbacks of Generative AI

It seems simple. You’ve been assigned an essay to write for class. You go to ChatGPT and ask it to write a five-paragraph academic essay on the topic you’ve been assigned. You wait a few seconds and it generates the essay for you!

But ChatGPT is still in its early stages of development, and that essay is likely not as accurate or well-written as you’d expect it to be. Be aware of the drawbacks of having ChatGPT complete your assignments.

It’s not intelligence, it’s statistics

One of the misconceptions about AI is that it has a degree of human intelligence. However, its intelligence is actually statistical analysis, as it can only generate “original” content based on the patterns it sees in already existing data and work.

It “hallucinates”

Generative AI models often provide false information — so much so that there’s a term for it: “AI hallucination.” OpenAI even has a warning on its home screen , saying that “ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.” This may be due to gaps in its data, or because it lacks the ability to verify what it’s generating. 

It doesn’t do research  

If you ask ChatGPT to find and cite sources for you, it will do so, but they could be inaccurate or even made up.

This is because AI doesn’t know how to look for relevant research that can be applied to your thesis. Instead, it generates content based on past content, so if a number of papers cite certain sources, it will generate new content that sounds like it’s a credible source — except it likely may not be.

There are data privacy concerns

When you input your data into a public generative AI model like ChatGPT, where does that data go and who has access to it? 

Prompting ChatGPT with original research should be a cause for concern — especially if you’re inputting study participants’ personal information into the third-party, public application. 

JPMorgan has restricted use of ChatGPT due to privacy concerns, Italy temporarily blocked ChatGPT in March 2023 after a data breach, and Security Intelligence advises that “if [a user’s] notes include sensitive data … it enters the chatbot library. The user no longer has control over the information.”

It is important to be aware of these issues and take steps to ensure that you’re using the technology responsibly and ethically. 

It skirts the plagiarism issue

AI creates content by drawing on a large library of information that’s already been created, but is it plagiarizing? Could there be instances where ChatGPT “borrows” from previous work and places it into your work without citing it? Schools and universities today are wrestling with this question of what’s plagiarism and what’s not when it comes to AI-generated work.

To demonstrate this, one Elon University professor gave his class an assignment: Ask ChatGPT to write an essay for you, and then grade it yourself. 

“Many students expressed shock and dismay upon learning the AI could fabricate bogus information,” he writes, adding that he expected some essays to contain errors, but all of them did. 

His students were disappointed that “major tech companies had pushed out AI technology without ensuring that the general population understands its drawbacks” and were concerned about how many embraced such a flawed tool.

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How to Use AI as a Tool to Support Your Work

As more students are discovering, generative AI models like ChatGPT just aren’t as advanced or intelligent as they may believe. While AI may be a poor option for writing your essay, it can be a great tool to support your work.

Generate ideas for essays

Have ChatGPT help you come up with ideas for essays. For example, input specific prompts, such as, “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write on topics related to WWII,” or “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write comparing characters in twentieth century novels.” Then, use what it provides as a starting point for your original research.

Generate outlines

You can also use ChatGPT to help you create an outline for an essay. Ask it, “Can you create an outline for a five paragraph essay based on the following topic” and it will create an outline with an introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion, and a suggested thesis statement. Then, you can expand upon the outline with your own research and original thought.

Generate titles for your essays

Titles should draw a reader into your essay, yet they’re often hard to get right. Have ChatGPT help you by prompting it with, “Can you suggest five titles that would be good for a college essay about [topic]?”

The Benefits of Writing Your Essays Yourself

Asking a robot to write your essays for you may seem like an easy way to get ahead in your studies or save some time on assignments. But, outsourcing your work to ChatGPT can negatively impact not just your grades, but your ability to communicate and think critically as well. It’s always the best approach to write your essays yourself.

Create your own ideas

Writing an essay yourself means that you’re developing your own thoughts, opinions, and questions about the subject matter, then testing, proving, and defending those thoughts. 

When you complete school and start your career, projects aren’t simply about getting a good grade or checking a box, but can instead affect the company you’re working for — or even impact society. Being able to think for yourself is necessary to create change and not just cross work off your to-do list.

Building a foundation of original thinking and ideas now will help you carve your unique career path in the future.

Develop your critical thinking and analysis skills

In order to test or examine your opinions or questions about a subject matter, you need to analyze a problem or text, and then use your critical thinking skills to determine the argument you want to make to support your thesis. Critical thinking and analysis skills aren’t just necessary in school — they’re skills you’ll apply throughout your career and your life.

Improve your research skills

Writing your own essays will train you in how to conduct research, including where to find sources, how to determine if they’re credible, and their relevance in supporting or refuting your argument. Knowing how to do research is another key skill required throughout a wide variety of professional fields.

Learn to be a great communicator

Writing an essay involves communicating an idea clearly to your audience, structuring an argument that a reader can follow, and making a conclusion that challenges them to think differently about a subject. Effective and clear communication is necessary in every industry.

Be impacted by what you’re learning about : 

Engaging with the topic, conducting your own research, and developing original arguments allows you to really learn about a subject you may not have encountered before. Maybe a simple essay assignment around a work of literature, historical time period, or scientific study will spark a passion that can lead you to a new major or career.

Resources to Improve Your Essay Writing Skills

While there are many rewards to writing your essays yourself, the act of writing an essay can still be challenging, and the process may come easier for some students than others. But essay writing is a skill that you can hone, and students at Harvard Summer School have access to a number of on-campus and online resources to assist them.

Students can start with the Harvard Summer School Writing Center , where writing tutors can offer you help and guidance on any writing assignment in one-on-one meetings. Tutors can help you strengthen your argument, clarify your ideas, improve the essay’s structure, and lead you through revisions. 

The Harvard libraries are a great place to conduct your research, and its librarians can help you define your essay topic, plan and execute a research strategy, and locate sources. 

Finally, review the “ The Harvard Guide to Using Sources ,” which can guide you on what to cite in your essay and how to do it. Be sure to review the “Tips For Avoiding Plagiarism” on the “ Resources to Support Academic Integrity ” webpage as well to help ensure your success.

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The Future of AI in the Classroom

ChatGPT and other generative AI models are here to stay, so it’s worthwhile to learn how you can leverage the technology responsibly and wisely so that it can be a tool to support your academic pursuits. However, nothing can replace the experience and achievement gained from communicating your own ideas and research in your own academic essays.

About the Author

Jessica A. Kent is a freelance writer based in Boston, Mass. and a Harvard Extension School alum. Her digital marketing content has been featured on Fast Company, Forbes, Nasdaq, and other industry websites; her essays and short stories have been featured in North American Review, Emerson Review, Writer’s Bone, and others.

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“Telling people not to use ChatGPT is not preparing people for the world of the future,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

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Did student or ChatGPT write that paper? Does it matter?

Sam Altman, CEO of firm that developed app, says ethics do matter, but they need to be rethought (and AI isn’t going away)

Harvard Correspondent

Colleges and universities have been wrestling with concerns over plagiarism and other ethical questions surrounding the use of AI since the emergence of ChatGPT in late 2022.

But Sam Altman, whose company, OpenAI, launched the chatbot app, said during a campus visit Wednesday that AI is such a powerful tool that higher education would be doing its students a disservice by turning its back on it — if that were even possible now. And some of the old rules of ethics will need to be rethought.

“Cheating on homework is obviously bad,” said Altman. “But what we mean by cheating and what the expected rules are does change over time.”

Altman discussed AI in the academy, along with the subtleties of using ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, while at the University to receive the Experiment Cup from Xfund , an early stage venture capital firm. That event was sponsored by the John A. Paulson School for Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard Business School, and the Institute for Business in Global Society ( BiGS ). It featured a conversation between Altman and Xfund co-founder Patrick Chung ’96.

Speaking to the Gazette before the Cup presentation, Altman likened the initial uproar at schools over ChatGPT to the ones that arose after the arrival of calculators and, later, search engines like Google. “People said, ‘We’ve got to ban these because people will just cheat on their homework,’” he said.

Altman, who left Stanford at 19 to start Loopt, a location-sharing social media app, said the reaction to calculators, for instance, was overblown. “If people don’t need to calculate a sine function by hand again … then mathematical education is over,” he said, with a gentle half-smile on his face.

Altman helped launch OpenAI in 2015 and its wildly influential ChatGPT — which can write papers and generate computer programs, among other things — before being removed in 2023 and then reinstated four days later as the company’s CEO.

ChatGPT, he said, has the potential to exponentially increase productivity in the same way calculators freed users from performing calculations by hand, calling the app “a calculator for words.”

He warned, “Telling people not to use ChatGPT is not preparing people for the world of the future.”

Following a bit of back-and-forth about how the ethics of using ChatGPT and other generative AI may differ in various disciplines, Altman came down hard in favor of utility, praising AI’s massive potential in every field.

“Standards are just going to have to evolve,” he said. He dismissed the notion that ChatGPT could be used for writing in the sciences, where the emphasis is on the findings, but not in the humanities, where the expression of ideas is central.

“Writing a paper the old-fashioned way is not going to be the thing,” he said. “Using the tool to best discover and express, to communicate ideas, I think that’s where things are going to go in the future.”

Altman, who last month joined the Department of Homeland Security’s Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board , said ethics remains a concern, and one that has yet to be resolved.

“There will be a conversation about what are the absolute limits of the tool, how do we as a society … negotiate ‘Here is what AI systems can never do.’ Where do we set the defaults? How much does an individual user get to move things around within those boundaries? How do we think about different countries’ laws?”

However, that discussion should not slow the development of AI. Instead, Altman described parallel tracks.

“Generally speaking, I do think these are tools that should do what their users want,” he said, before adding an important, if less than specific, caveat: “But there are going to have to be real limits.”

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OpenAI's new tool may help you identify text written by ChatGPT

But it can “mislabel both ai-generated and human-written text.”.

OpenAI has released a tool to help you determine whether text was more likely written by a human or AI. However, the ChatGPT maker warns that its equivalent of Blade Runner ’s Voight-Kampff test can also get it wrong.

The tool includes a box where you can paste text that’s at least 1,000 characters long. It will then spit out a verdict, like “The classifier considers the text to be very unlikely AI-generated” or “The classifier considers the text to be possibly AI-generated.”

I tested it by prompting ChatGPT to write an essay about the migratory patterns of birds, which the detection tool then described as “possibly AI-generated.” Meanwhile, it rated several human-written articles as “very unlikely AI-generated.” So although the tool could raise false flags in either direction, my (tiny sample size) test suggests at least a degree of accuracy. Still, OpenAI cautions not to use the tool alone to determine content’s authenticity; it also works best with text of 1,000 words or longer.

The startup has faced pressure from educators after the November release of its ChatGPT tool, which produces AI-written content that can sometimes pass for human writing. The natural-language model can create essays in seconds based on simple text prompts — even passing a graduate business and law exam — while providing students with a tempting new cheating opportunity. As a result, New York public schools banned the bot from their WiFi networks and school devices.

While ChatGPT’s arrival has been a buzzed-about topic of late, even extending into media outlets eager to automate SEO-friendly articles , the bot is big business for OpenAI. The company reportedly secured a $10 billion investment earlier this month from Microsoft, which plans to integrate it into Bing and Office 365. OpenAI allegedly discussed selling shares at a $29 billion valuation late last year, which would make it one of the most valuable US startups.

Although ChatGPT is currently the best publicly available natural language AI model, Google, Baidu and others are working on competitors. Google’s LaMDA is convincing enough that one former researcher threw away his job with the search giant last year by claiming the chatbot is sentient. (The human tendency to project feelings and consciousness onto algorithms is a concept we’ll likely hear much about in the coming years.) Google has only released extremely constricted versions of its chatbot in a beta, presumably out of ethical concerns. With the genie out of the bottle, it will be interesting to see how long that restraint lasts.

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How chatgpt can make writing easier — and what to avoid.

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Close up stock photograph of a mature man studying a see-through computer monitor that’s displaying ... [+] text provided by an AI (artificial intelligence) chatbot.

The launch of ChatGPT 17 months ago is considered by many to be a technological inflection point as significant as the launch of the integrated circuit, the internet, and the iPhone. As with any such disruption, each novelty brings out legions of detractors and supporters.

To address both sides of the issue, let’s examine the positive aspects of ChatGPT and, as a cautionary tale, allay the concerns of the detractors.

Generating content

As soon as ChatGPT came out, students started using the technology to do their written assignments which led to charges of cheating as this article by Michael Nietzel indicates. Businesspeople, too, started using the technology to do their daily work—emails, reports, marketing communications, product/service descriptions—and while businesspeople are not likely to be charged with cheating, the practice does have the downside of coming across as either bland, generic, or flowery. The title and subtitle of an article in The Atlantic says it all: “ChatGPT is Dumber Than You Think: Treat it like a toy not a tool.”

Instead, set an honor code for yourself. Never use generative AI tools to generate content from scratch. First, do a rough draft of your own. Then turn to the bot as a productivity tool and prompt it for a draft. Use any ideas or phrases from the bot and work them into a second draft of your own. Be sure you keep both drafts separate to maintain the integrity of your honor code.

Editing content

Read that second draft, now focusing on the language. To heighten the accuracy and color of your description, query the bot again for synonymous words or idiomatic phrases. You can also use dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, or Google’s Power Thesaurus, but if you give ChatGPT a sense of what you’re looking for, its natural language can provide closer suggestions. Don’t just cherry-pick from the list; use your native intuition to make the choice that fits best.

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Your best look yet at the new iphone 16, the richest person in every state 2024, enriching content.

As you develop your text, look for additional information that supports and adds depth to your ideas. If the information you find is lengthy or complex, copy and paste it into the bot and prompt it to simplify. Read the simplification and then work the information into your original draft using your own words.

During the process, be sure to double check the accuracy of your research. ChatGPT is often not only inaccurate but as this New York Times article reports, can provide misinformation.

Polishing content

Continue to review your text. Remember that one of the most frequently cited adages among professional writers is “Writing is rewriting.” With each review, you should be implementing a practice known as “Spaced Learning,” or walking away from your text. It’s a human technique that predates ChatGPT. For context, the opposite of Spaced Learning is cramming—need I say more?

In using ChatGPT and other generative AI tools this way, you will be implementing “error-driven learning,” a practice drawn from technology that enables and improves human thinking. In a recent Wall Street Journal article , Professor Charan Ranganath who runs the Dynamic Memory Lab at the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis, references the work of two cognitive psychologist in 1990 who noted that “neural network models of artificial intelligence learn through trial and error.” Professor Ranganath then ran an experiment in his lab that “used neural network models to simulate what happens in the hippocampus—a critical brain area for rapid learning.” His results found “that the human brain can learn and retain far more through trial and error.”

So go ahead and use ChatGPT to help you generate, edit, enrich, and polish your content, but be sure to keep your hand on the tiller by using an equal measure of your own human capabilities.

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These 4 Words Make It Obvious You Used AI to Write a Paper, According to New Research Scientists are increasingly using ChatGPT and other AI bots to write studies.

By Sherin Shibu • May 3, 2024

Key Takeaways

• Four words have exploded in popularity in academic writing since ChatGPT launched: realm, intricate, showcasing, and pivotal.
• A Stanford study tracked the occurrence of these words over time and found that the pressure to publish quickly may have made AI writing options appealing.

AI has infiltrated scientific research papers — and a handful of words give away that scientists may have had some writing help from ChatGPT.

A new Stanford University study published in arXiv suggests that since OpenAI's ChatGPT came on the scene in November 2022 , researchers have steadily increased how often they use AI to help with academic writing.

In the first large-scale review of how AI has impacted scholarly writing, the Stanford researchers analyzed nearly a million papers published in arXiv, bioRxiv, and Nature from January 2020 to February 2024.

They looked for certain words that AI tends to overuse, words that exploded in popularity since ChatGPT launched: realm, intricate, showcasing, and pivotal.

Related: A New AI Chatbot Is Revolutionizing Business School Curriculum and Accreditation

Their findings, released in April, revealed a 6.3% to 17.5% growth in the use of AI over time.

The fastest growth was in the computer science department, where abstracts and introductions with common AI-used words rose to 17.5% and 15.3% respectively by February 2024.

The rising popularity of four common words used more by AI than humans in arXiv computer science abstracts. Credit: Stanford University paper titled "Mapping the Increasing Use of LLMs in Scientific Papers"

The researchers suggested that computer science might have grown the most quickly because academics in that department might have been more familiar with ChatGPT and have had better access to AI models.

Related: This One Word Is a Giveaway That You Used ChatGPT to Write an Email, According to an Expert

It's not just the Stanford study: Dr. Jeremy Nguyen , a senior researcher and lecturer at Swinburne Business School in Australia, shared findings specific to medical papers that showed a possible increase in AI writing.

Nguyen searched all PubMed articles published in the past 34 years for another popular word used by ChatGPT: " delve ."

He found a remarkable uptick in research articles that used the word, suggesting that AI had been used to help write those pieces.

Are medical studies being written with ChatGPT? Well, we all know ChatGPT overuses the word "delve". Look below at how often the word 'delve' is used in papers on PubMed (2023 was the first full year of ChatGPT). pic.twitter.com/iNxZfFLkxL — Jeremy Nguyen ✍? ? (@JeremyNguyenPhD) March 30, 2024

Scientists face increasing pressure to publish , especially because researchers are ranked based on how many times their articles are cited. In certain disciplines like AI research, that pressure can be more intense.

"The fast-paced nature of [AI] research and the associated pressure to publish quickly may incentivize the use of [AI] writing assistance," the Stanford researchers stated.

Related: AI Is Changing How Businesses Recruit for Open Roles — and How Candidates Are Gaming the System

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Should A.I. Write Your College Essays?

Cartoon by Dave Granlund

College admissions officers—and high school students—wrestle with A.I.-generated college essays

Ritika Vakharia, a senior at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology in Georgia, says she tried asking ChatGPT to produce ideas for college admissions essays. But she found the responses too broad and impersonal, even after she gave it details about her extracurricular activities, such as teaching dance classes to younger students.

Instead, she worked to come up with a more personal college application essay theme.

“I feel a little more pressure to create, like, this super unique, interesting topic,” Vakharia says, “because a basic one these days could just be generated by ChatGPT.”

The easy availability of A.I. chatbots like ChatGPT, which can manufacture humanlike text in response to short prompts, is upending the undergraduate application process at selective colleges. It’s either ushering in an era of automated plagiarism or of democratized student access to essay-writing help. Or maybe both.

The disruption comes at a turning point for U.S. institutions of higher education. After the Supreme Court ruled last June that race-based university admissions programs were illegal, some institutions hoped to rely more on essay questions about applicants’ upbringing, identities, and communities to help foster diversity on campus.

“It makes me sad,” Lee Coffin, the dean of admissions at Dartmouth College, said in a podcast last year that touched on A.I.-generated application essays. “The idea that this central component of a story could be manufactured by someone other than the applicant is disheartening.”

Ritika Vakharia is a senior at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology in Georgia. She tried asking ChatGPT for ideas for her college admissions essays. She found the responses too broad and impersonal. She had even given it details about her extracurricular activities, including teaching dance classes to younger students.

So instead of using ChatGPT’s ideas, she decided to come up with a more personal essay theme.

A.I. chatbots like ChatGPT can manufacture humanlike text in response to short prompts. The availability of chatbots is changing the undergraduate application process at selective colleges. It’s either starting a time of automated plagiarism or of universal student access to essay-writing help. Or maybe both.

These technologies come at a turning point for U.S. institutions of higher education. The Supreme Court ruled last June that race-based university admissions programs were illegal. Some institutions hoped to rely more on essay questions about applicants’ upbringing, identities, and communities to help develop diversity on campus.

Alyssa Pointer/The New York Times

“I feel a little more pressure to create, like, this super unique, interesting topic because a basic one these days could just be generated by ChatGPT.” —Ritika Vakharia

New A.I. Tools

The personal essay has long been a staple of the application process at colleges. Admissions officers have often used applicants’ essays as a lens into their unique character, pluck, potential, and ability to handle adversity. As a result, some former students say they felt tremendous pressure to develop, or at least concoct, a singular personal writing voice.

But new A.I. tools now threaten to cast doubt on the legitimacy of applicants’ writing samples as authentic products of their intellect and creativity. That has forced colleges to rethink their admissions processes.

“Students on some level are going to have access to and use A.I.,” says Rick Clark, executive director of undergraduate admission at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “The big question is: How do we want to direct them, knowing that it’s out there and available to them?”

Some teachers are troubled by students using A.I. to write their college essays for deeper reasons: Outsourcing writing to bots could hinder students from developing important critical thinking and storytelling skills.

“Part of the process of the college essay is finding your writing voice through all of that drafting and revising,” says Susan Barber, an Advanced Placement English literature teacher at Midtown High School, a public school in Atlanta. “And I think that’s something that ChatGPT would be robbing them of.”

The personal essay has long been an important part of the application process at colleges. Admissions officers have used essays as a way to see into applicants’ unique character, potential, and ability to handle adversity. As a result, some former students say they felt tremendous pressure. They felt they had to develop, or at least concoct, a singular personal writing voice.

But new A.I. tools now threaten to cast doubt on the validity of applicants’ writing samples as real products of their intellect and creativity. Colleges are forced to rethink their admissions processes.

Some teachers are troubled by students using A.I. to write their college essays for deeper reasons. Using bots to write could keep students from developing important critical thinking and storytelling skills.

Kendrick Brinson/The New York Times

“Part of the process of the college essay is finding your writing voice . . . And I think that’s something that ChatGPT would be robbing them of.”  —Susan Barber, AP English literature Teacher in Atlanta

Last August, Barber asked her 12th-grade students to write college essays. Then she held class discussions about ChatGPT, cautioning students that using A.I. chatbots to generate ideas or writing could make their college essays sound too generic. She advised them to focus more on their personal views and voices.

Yet other educators say they hope the A.I. tools might have a democratizing effect. Wealthy high school students often have access to resources to help brainstorm, draft, and edit their college admissions essays. ChatGPT could play a similar role for students who lack such resources, especially those at large high schools where overworked college counselors have little time for individualized essay coaching.

“It’s free, it’s accessible, and it’s helpful,” says Clark. “It’s progress toward equity.”

At the same time, as colleges wrestle with just how to handle the explosion of literate A.I. bots, some students, like Kevin Jacob, a senior at the Gwinnett School, are unsure how to proceed.

“The vagueness and ambiguity,” Jacob says, “is kind of hard for us.”

Last August, Barber asked her 12th-grade students to write college essays. Then she held class discussions about ChatGPT. She warned students that using A.I. chatbots to generate ideas or writing could make their college essays sound too generic. She advised them to focus more on their personal views and voices.

Yet other educators say they hope the A.I. tools might have an equalizing effect. Wealthy high school students often have access to more resources. They get help to brainstorm, draft, and edit their college admissions essays. ChatGPT could play a similar role for students who lack such resources. It would especially help those at large high schools where overworked college counselors have little time for individualized essay coaching.

As colleges figure out how to handle the explosion of literate A.I. bots, some students, like Kevin Jacob, a senior at the Gwinnett School, are unsure how to proceed.

Natasha Singer writes about technology, business, and society for The New York Times .

Natasha Singer writes about technology, business, and society for  The   New York  Times .

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How to write better ChatGPT prompts in 5 steps

ChatGPT is the generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool that's taken the world by storm. While there's always the possibility it will simply make stuff up , there's a lot you can do when crafting prompts to ensure the best possible outcome. That's what we'll be exploring in this how-to.

In this article, we'll show you how to write prompts that encourage the large language model (LLM) that powers  ChatGPT to provide the best possible answers. 

Also: Have 10 hours? IBM will train you in AI fundamentals - for free

Writing effective prompts, known as prompt engineering, has even become its own highly-paid discipline . Who knows? These tips could help you build the skills to become one of those highly paid prompt engineers. Apparently, these gigs can pay from $175,000 to $335,000 per year.  

How to write effective ChatGPT prompts

1. talk to the ai like you would a person.

One of the more interesting things I had to get used to when working with ChatGPT is that you don't program it, you talk to it. As a formally trained programmer, I've had to leave a lot of habits by the wayside when engaging with AI. Talking to it (and with it) requires a mindset shift.

When I say talk to it like a person, I mean talk to it like you would a co-worker or team member. If that's hard to do, give it a name. Alexa is taken, so maybe think of it as "Bob". This naming helps because when you talk to Bob, you might include conversational details, little anecdotes that give your story texture.

Also:   How to use ChatGPT to write code

When talking to a person, it would be natural for them to miss your point initially and require clarification, or veer away from the topic at hand and need to be wrangled back. You might need to fill in the backstory for them, or restate complex questions based on the answers they give you. 

This is called interactive prompting. Don't be afraid to ask multi-step questions: ask, get a response, and based on that response, ask another question. I've done this myself, sometimes 10 or 20 times in a row, and gotten very powerful results. Think of this as having a conversation with ChatGPT.

2. Set the stage and provide context

Writing a ChatGPT prompt is more than just asking a one-sentence question. It often involves providing relevant background information to set the context of the query.

Let's say that you want to prepare for a marathon (for the record, I do not run, dance, or jump -- this is merely an example). You could ask ChatGPT:

How can I prepare for a marathon?

However, you'll get a far more nuanced answer if you add that you're training for your first marathon. Try this instead: 

I am a beginner runner and have never run a marathon before, but I want to complete one in six months. How can I prepare for a marathon?

By giving the AI more information, you're helping it return a more focused answer. Even with ChatGPT's help, there's no way I'm going to run a marathon (unless I'm doing it with a V-Twin motor under my seat). Here are two more examples of questions that provide context:

I am planning to travel to Spain in a few months and would like to learn some basic Spanish to help me communicate with local residents. I am looking for online resources that are suitable for beginners and provide a structured and comprehensive approach to learning the language. Can you recommend some online resources for learning Spanish as a beginner?

In this case, rather than just asking about learning resources, the context helps focus the AI on learning how to communicate on the ground with local residents. Here's another example: 

I am a business owner interested in exploring how blockchain technology can be used to improve supply chain efficiency and transparency. I am looking for a clear and concise explanation of the technology and examples of how it has been used in the context of supply chain management. Can you explain the concept of blockchain technology and its potential applications in supply chain management?

In this example, rather than just asking for information on blockchain and how it works, the focus is specifically on blockchain for supply chain efficiency and how it might be used in a real-world scenario. 

Also:  How to use Image Creator from Microsoft Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator) Lastly, let's get into how to construct a detailed prompt. 

One note: I limit the answer to 500 words because ChatGPT seems to break when asked to produce somewhere between 500 and 700 words, leaving stories mid-sentence and not resuming properly when asked to continue. I hope future versions provide longer answers, because premises like this can generate fun story beginnings: 

Write a short story for me, no more than 500 words. The story takes place in 2339, in Boston. The entire story takes place inside a Victorian-style bookstore that wouldn't be out of place in Diagon Alley. Inside the store are the following characters, all human: The proprietor: make this person interesting and a bit unusual, give them a name and at least one skill or characteristic that influences their backstory and possibly influences the entire short story. The helper: this is a clerk in the store. His name is Todd. The customer and his friend: Two customers came into the store together, Jackson and Ophelia. Jackson is dressed as if he's going to a Steampunk convention, while Ophelia is clearly coming home from her day working in a professional office. Another customer is Evangeline, a regular customer in the store, in her mid-40s. Yet another customer is Archibald, a man who could be anywhere from 40 to 70 years old. He has a mysterious air about himself and seems both somewhat grandiose and secretive. There is something about Archibald that makes the others uncomfortable. A typical concept in retail sales is that there's always more inventory "in the back," where there's a storeroom for additional goods that might not be shown on the shelves where customers browse. The premise of this story is that there is something very unusual about this store's "in the back." Put it all together and tell something compelling and fun.

You can see how the detail provides more for the AI to work with. First, feed "Write me a story about a bookstore" into ChatGPT and see what it gives you. Then feed in the above prompt and you'll see the difference.

3. Tell the AI to assume an identity or profession

One of ChatGPT's coolest features is that it can write from the point of view of a specific person or profession. In a previous article, I showed how you can make ChatGPT write like a pirate or Shakespeare , but you can also have it write like a teacher, a marketing executive, a fiction writer -- anyone you want. 

Also: How ChatGPT can rewrite and improve your existing code  

For example, I can ask ChatGPT to describe the Amazon Echo smart home device, but to do so from the point of view of a product manager, a caregiver, and a journalist in three separate prompts: 

From the point of view of its product manager, describe the Amazon Echo Alexa device. From the point of view of an adult child caring for an elderly parent, describe the Amazon Echo Alexa device. From the point of view of a journalist, describe the Amazon Echo Alexa device.

Try dropping these three prompts into ChatGPT to see its complete response. 

I've pulled a few lines from ChatGPT's responses, so you can see how it interprets different perspectives.  From the product manager identity:  I can confidently say that this is one of the most innovative and revolutionary products in the smart home industry.

From the caregiver identity:  The device's ability to set reminders and alarms can be particularly helpful for elderly individuals who may have trouble remembering to take their medication or attend appointments.

Also:   5 ways to explore the use of generative AI at work

And from the journalist identity:  From a journalistic perspective, the Echo has made headlines due to privacy concerns surrounding the collection and storage of user data.

You can see how different identities allow the AI to provide different perspectives as part of its response. To expand this, you can let the AI do a thought experiment. Let's look at some of the issues that went into the creation of something like Alexa:

The year is 2012. Siri has been out for the iPhone for about a year, but nothing like an Alexa smart home device has been released. The scene is an Amazon board meeting where the Echo smart assistant based on Alexa has just been proposed.  Provide the arguments, pro and con, that board members at that meeting would have been likely to discuss as part of their process of deciding whether or not to approve spending to invest in developing the device.  Feel free to also include participation by engineering design experts and product champions, if that provides more comprehensive perspective.

It's also good to know that making minor changes to your prompts can significantly change ChatGPT's response. For example, when I changed the phrase, "Provide the arguments, pro and con, that..." to "Provide the pro and con arguments as dialogue, that...," ChatGPT rewrote its answer, switching from a list of enumerated pros and cons to an actual dialogue between participants.

4. Keep ChatGPT on track

As mentioned above, ChatGPT has a tendency to go off the rails, lose track of the discussion, or completely fabricate answers. 

There are a few techniques you can use to help keep it on track and honest.

One of my favorite things to do is ask ChatGPT to justify its responses. I'll use phrases like "Why do you think that?" or "What evidence supports your answer?" Often, the AI will simply apologize for making stuff up and come back with a new answer. Other times, it might give you some useful information about its reasoning path. In any case, don't forget to apply the tips I provide for having ChatGPT cite sources .

Also:  My two favorite ChatGPT Plus features and the remarkable things I can do with them

If you have a fairly long conversation with ChatGPT, you'll start to notice that the AI loses the thread. Not that that's unique to AIs -- even in extended conversations with humans, someone is bound to get lost. That said, you can gently guide the AI back on track by reminding it what the topic is, as well as what you're trying to explore.

5. Don't be afraid to play and experiment

One of the best ways to up your skill at this craft is to play around with what the chatbot can do.

Try feeding ChatGPT a variety of interesting prompts to see what it will do with them. Then change them up and see what happens. Here are five to get you started:

• Imagine you are a raindrop falling from the sky during a thunderstorm. Describe your journey from the moment you form in the cloud to the moment you hit the ground. What do you see, feel, and experience?
• You are a toy that has been left behind in an attic for decades. Narrate your feelings, memories of playtimes past, and your hopes of being rediscovered.
• Write the final diary entry of a time traveler who has decided to settle down in a specific era, explaining why they chose that time and what they've learned from their travels.
• Imagine a dialogue between two unlikely objects, like a teacup and a wristwatch, discussing the daily routines and challenges they face.
• Describe a day in an ant colony from the perspective of an ant. Dive deep into the politics, challenges, and social structures of the ant world.

Pay attention not only to what the AI generates, but how it generates what it does, what mistakes it makes, and where it seems to run into limits. All of that detail will help you expand your prompting horizons.

More prompt-writing tips 

• Feel free to re-ask the question. ChatGPT will often change its answer with each ask.
• Make small changes to your prompts to guide it into giving you a better answer.
• ChatGPT will retain its awareness of previous conversations as long as the current page is open. If you leave that page, it will lose awareness. To be clear, ChatGPT will also sometimes lose the thread of the conversation without reason, so be aware you may need to start over from time to time.
• Similarly, opening a new page will start the discussion with fresh responses.
• Be sure to specify the length of the response you want. Answers over about 500 words sometimes break down. 
• You can correct and clarify prompts based on how the AI answered previously. If it's misinterpreting you, you may be able to just tell it what it missed and continue.
• Rephrase questions if ChatGPT doesn't want to answer what you're asking. Use personas to elicit answers that it might not otherwise want to give.
• If you want sources cited , tell it to support or justify its answers.
• ChatGPT custom instructions are now available to free users. You can  give ChatGPT a set of prompts that are always available , so you don't have to retype them.
• Keep experimenting.
• Consider getting the ChatGPT Plus subscription . You can then use your own data for powerful analytics . You can also pull data from the Web . 
• Try asking the same question of Gemini  (formerly Bard) or Copilot (formerly Bing Chat). Both will interpret your prompts differently and answer differently. This is effectively getting a second opinion on your prompt, and can give you alternate perspectives.
• Ask for examples. If you want to see how well ChatGPT understands what you're asking for, ask it "Can you give me three examples of how that works?" or similar questions.
• Ask it to repeat parts of your original requests back to you. For example, if you feed it an article to analyze, you can tell it something like, "Just to be sure you understand, please echo back the first three headlines," or "I want to be sure you understand what I mean, so summarize the main conflict discussed in this article." 
• Sometimes ChatGPT just fails. Keep trying, but also be willing to give up and move on to other tools. It's not perfect...yet.

What type of prompts work best with ChatGPT? 

Part of what makes ChatGPT so compelling is you can ask it almost anything. That said, keep in mind that it's designed to provide written answers. If you want a list of websites, you're better off talking to Google. 

Also:  How to use DALL-E 3 in ChatGPT

If you want some form of computation, talk to Wolfram Alpha . Give ChatGPT open-ended prompts, encourage creativity, and don't be afraid to share personal experiences or emotions. Plus, keep in mind that the AI's knowledge ends in 2021  for ChatGPT 3.5 and December 2023 for ChatGPT 4 in ChatGPT Plus.

How can I adjust the complexity of ChatGPT responses?

You can directly specify the complexity level by including it in your prompt. Add "... at a high school level" or "... at a level intended for a Ph.D. to understand" to the end of your question. You can also increase complexity of output by increasing the richness of your input. The more you provide in your prompt, the more detailed and nuanced ChatGPT's response will be. You can also include other specific instructions, like "Give me a summary," "Explain in detail," or "Provide a technical description."

Also:  How does ChatGPT actually work?

You can also pre-define profiles. For example, you could say "When evaluating something for a manager, assume an individual with a four-year business college education, a lack of detailed technical understanding, and a fairly limited attention span, who likes to get answers that are clear and concise. When evaluating something for a programmer, assume considerable technical knowledge, an enjoyment of geek and science fiction references, and a desire for a complete answer. Accuracy is deeply important to programmers, so double-check your work."

If you ask ChatGPT to "explain C++ to a manager" and "explain C++ to a programmer," you'll see how the responses differ.

What do I do if ChatGPT refuses to answer or I don't like its answer? 

There are some guardrails built into ChatGPT. It tends to shut down if you ask it political questions, for example. That's what's built into the system. While you might be able to tease out an answer, it's probably not going to provide great value. That said, feel free to keep trying with different phrasing or perspectives. 

You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly update newsletter on Substack , and follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz , on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz , on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz , and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV .

More on AI tools

Google releases two new free resources to help you optimize your ai prompts, 5 ways ai can help you study for finals - for free, how to use chatgpt.

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How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

Learn how to craft powerful ChatGPT prompts to generate high-quality SEO content. Follow expert tips, examples, and strategies for layering prompts to get the best results.

ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO . This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.

However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.

To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.

Writing Prompts For ChatGPT

What is a chatgpt prompt.

A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.

The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.

Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.

ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.

How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT

Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”

ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.

Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing . You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.

If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.

For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”

Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.

However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.

Must-Have GPTs Assistant

I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.

This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.

It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat. )

For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.

With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.

You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.

Master Reverse Prompt Engineering

ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.

By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.

One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.

This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.

Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content , you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.

Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts

First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.

• Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”

ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.

• Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”

The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.

• Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text : product =”

I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.

• Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt : text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”

But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.

Prompts and examples for SEO:

• Keyword research and content ideas p rompt : “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
• Optimizing content for featured snippets p rompt : “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
• Creating meta descriptions p rompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”

Important Considerations:

• Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
• Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
• Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.

Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO: – Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful. – Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity. – Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links. – Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.

Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.

Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques

Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content .

Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.

Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.

This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.

More resources: 

• 25 ChatGPT Examples For Digital Marketers & SEOs 
• From Zero To ChatGPT Hero: How To Harness The Power Of AI In Marketing
• Leveraging Generative AI Tools For SEO

Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock

Vincent Terrasi is the Co-founder and CTO at Draft&Goal. With more than 15 year’s experience, Vincent has become an expert ...

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10 ChatGPT prompts to AI-maximize your productivity

• ChatGPT is a versatile tool that can be used to help with explanations, ideas, edits, games, recommendations, trip plans, translations, and characters.
• Use specific prompts to get tailored results and improve interactions with AI.
• ChatGPT is capable of simplifying text, brainstorming ideas, and translating multiple languages.

The possibilities that ChatGPT presents us with are almost limitless. This growing AI tool can assist with anything from writing and studying to practicing skills or creating stories. The only limiting factor is your imagination and how well you can prompt it . ChatGPT is getting smarter all the time, but some prompts get more out of it than others.

Talking to an AI like ChatGPT or Gemini , especially for the first time, can feel awkward. You may not know how to properly present what you're asking to get the desired results, since it's more like having a conversation than putting in keywords into a search engine. Let's take a look at some of the best ChatGPT prompts you should try first to see what this AI can do and give you an idea of how to create your own prompts for your specific goals.

I tested ChatGPT Plus against Copilot Pro -- here's how each AI chatbot did

Basic explanations, explain like i'm five.

One of the best uses for ChatGPT is to provide you with a quick and simple answer to any question you have. Instead of having to sort and sift through multiple Google results, which may not even give you what you want, ChatGPT can respond in simple language that you can easily understand. It is also much easier to get the specific details you want rather than the broad explanations that Google tends to provide.

The best way to prompt an explanation of a concept would be something like "Explain (topic) like I am ten years old." If you want to get an even more digestible response, you can ask it to use bullet points or a list format instead of paragraphs.

How to master GPT-4 in ChatGPT: Prompts, tips, and tricks

Brainstorm ideas, get your juices flowing.

If you're ever in a creative rut, ChatGPT can help kickstart your creativity in whatever medium you desire. Whether you're a writer struggling to come up with details for your next plot, a marketer who needs something that will resonate with a specific audience, or a parent who wants to come up with ideas for a child's birthday party, ChatGPT can generate ideas in seconds.

The best prompts for getting ideas are to first ask for ideas in whatever format you're working in, but get specific in terms of your target audience. For example, "Generate ideas for a sci-fi story aimed at 18-30-year-olds focusing on action and romance." This includes the genre, age range, and elements you want included. The more specific you can be, the better your results. From there, you can tweak and adjust what's given as a jumping-off point.

How to use ChatGPT to make AI-generated images and art

Summarize text, break it down.

Sometimes we just don't have the time to read an entire text in the time allotted to us. Whether it's for work, school, or some other obligation, getting a quick synopsis can at least provide you with a working understanding of something until you have the time to fully read whatever it is. However, if it isn't a book, there's a good chance no one has actually gone ahead and summarized the text you have.

Assuming you have it in a format that's easily pastable into ChatGPT, you can just dump the text into the chat box and prompt it to break it down for you. My favorite way to get the essential info is to say, "Summarize the text and give me a bullet point list of the most important information." If you don't like bullet points, you can also just ask it to keep it within a certain number of sentences.

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Write content with style, add some voice.

Everyone has someone, real or fictional, whom they think has an amazing way with words. It could be how they speak or write, but something about their tone and personality just feels impossible to replicate. Trying to imitate another person's style is tough, but ChatGPT can pull from every source to make a very convincing attempt.

If, for example, you wanted to write a blog post about solar panels that sounds more fun and exciting, you could prompt ChatGPT with "Write a blog post about solar panels in the style of Quentin Tarantino." You can choose any famous writer or even fictional characters with a strong voice you admire.

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Edit your work, bring out your best.

When you spend most of your time casually chatting with friends online via text or chat messages, your formal writing skills could start to get a bit rusty. Whether it's an email to a boss or client or a formal report, there are times when you need to be absolutely certain that you're not making any egregious mistakes.

ChatGPT is a fantastic editor. Not only will it clean up any typos and grammatical errors, but it can also help strengthen your sentence structure and offer suggestions on how to change some phrasing to be more professional. Input your text and then ask ChatGPT to "Make my (text) sound more professional and use stronger words. Correct any spelling or grammatical errors as well

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Play some games.

Why make ChatGPT work all the time? This AI is down to play some games with you if you've got time to kill and no one else to hang out with. As it turns out, you will probably be surprised at the number of games you can play through text alone. ChatGPT is quite clever, so you will have a worthy opponent.

The obvious game you can play with ChatGPT is 20 questions, which it already knows, so you can just say "Let's play 20 questions" to get started. Some other games it knows are tic-tac-toe, guess the ASCII art (Draw me ASCII art, and I will try to guess what it is), hangman, and choose your own adventure games. There are tons more, and you can even make up your own if you're feeling creative.

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Get recommendations, what to check out next.

The more you get to know your own tastes, the harder it can be to find other media that resonates as strongly as your favorites. Once you've exhausted everything a director, writer, or artist has made, you're in the tough situation of trying to find something new that can give you that same vibe. With ChatGPT, you can get a shortlist of recommendations that should align with what you're after.

Ask ChatGPT to "Recommend me a (movie, TV show, game, etc.) like (example of what you like)." You can leave it at that, or list out the reasons why you liked your example so ChatGPT can be more specific in explaining why its recommendation should appeal to you.

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Plan a trip, the perfect itinerary.

Planning a trip is a stressful task. After dealing with getting your flight or driving route planned, you then need to make sure you take advantage of the time you have at your destination. This can be close to impossible if you're going somewhere new. Add in travel companions who are relying on you to organize things, and the pressure builds up fast.

ChatGPT can be your trusty planner to give you a detailed itinerary for any trip you have on the books. Because trips can look so different for everyone, the easiest way to prompt the AI is to start with "You are a travel planner. Please plan a trip for me based on where I'm going, how many people will be with me, and our budget." From there, ChatGPT will prompt you to fill in your individual needs and details to personalize the best trip it can for you.

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Translate anything, speak the language.

While on the subject of travel, what if you're adventuring in a country where you don't speak the native language? That would have been a major barrier in the past, but with tools like ChatGPT, you can at least get by without an interpreter or hoping your charade skills are up to par.

All you need to do is ask ChatGPT to translate whatever you want to say into the language of your choice. For example, "Translate 'Hi, my name is Jesse. I'm lost and looking for the train station. Could you point me in the right direction?' into Japanese." This will give you both the translation in Japanese text to show to the person and the answer written out in Roman characters to try and pronounce yourself. You can also translate in reverse if you see text you can't read and ask ChatGPT to translate it into English for you.

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Talk to your favorite character, the ultimate fan fiction.

Who hasn't wished they could interact with their favorite fictional character? Whether it be someone like Harry Potter, Frodo, Spider-Man, or Goku, we all have a character we long to meet but will never get the chance. ChatGPT can't actually bring them to life for us, but it can speak exactly as they would.

Whenever you want to chat with someone, living, dead, fictional, or otherwise, ChatGPT can play the part. Prompt it to "Pretend to be (character/person of choice) from (name of work/history)." Right away, ChatGPT will introduce itself as that person or character in their tone and respond to anything you say or ask as that character until you prompt it to stop.