UCC staff told it would be almost impossible to detect students cheating with ChatGPT

The emergence of ChatGPT has prompted concern within education about its potential use as a tool for cheating, with universities in many countries encouraging staff to re-think how they structure exams to ensure students cannot rely on such technologies to answer the questions for them. File photo: AP/Michael Dwyer

Staff at University College Cork (UCC) have been told it would be almost impossible to detect if students were using the controversial artificial intelligence (AI) tool ChatGPT to write assignments.

Lecturers were told that if the AI created a draft that students then edited, it was "likely to be very difficult to detect". They were also told that relying on existing tools for detecting plagiarism would not work as such tools are not “keeping apace with ChatGPT’s ability to evade detection”.