Is ChatGPT plagiarism free?

AI and plagiarism - we take a look at where we are with it all...

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With the rise in popularity of ai writing tools, many are starting to question whether arguably the most popular ai tool on the market, ChatGPT, is plagiarism free.

Plagiarism, particularly in academia, is hot topic. And now with ChatGPT’s ability to heavily assist in writing anything from essays to dissertations on a broad range of topics, anyone using the tool should be aware of any risks of being potentially flagged for plagiarism – even if unintentional.

Here we’ll take a closer look at the ai chatbot, and if using it holds any possibility of plagiarism.


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ChatGPT and plagiarism

Perhaps unfortunately for anyone wanting to clearly unmask AI, models with sophisticated language processing capabilities are…sophisticated. The latest chatbots no longer copy and paste chunks of text into a response. Even if those applications aren’t widespread yet and some still appear clunky.

ChatGPT’s use of NLP (Natural Language Processing) sets it apart, and identifying its text by just looking at it can be difficult.

But, as NPR pointed out in a December report on AI and plagiarism: “OpenAI…has signaled a commitment to preventing AI plagiarism and other nefarious applications”. In one way, if ChatGPT is plagiarism free that’s can be seen as a sort of success for development. But it also causes problems of integrity, potential cheating, and more.

OpenAI stated it was addressing this by developing a ‘watermark‘ that will show when a copy has been AI-generated. And has since delivered an ‘AI text classifier‘ to allow AI text to be detected.

ChatGPT Plagiarism Score

How plagiarism-free is ChatGPT? That’s a hard question to answer. Turnitin, a company offering solutions to ensure originality in writing says it can detect ChatGPT.

On the other hand, some reports suggest that ChatGPT-derived text scores as low as 5% for plagiarism when tested. For some tools, under 20% is an ‘acceptable’ score. But it will depend on the tool used and the type of copy.

Is AI content plagiarism free?

There’s perhaps a clash of morality and capabilities when it comes to AI content being plagiarism free. Certainly, AI content that passes plagiarism tests can be considered well-developed and engineered. But the key question may be whether AI content being plagiarism free is a good thing.

For OpenAI to have delivered an AI Text Classifier seems responsible. Creating human-like applications to interact with is one thing. But who wants to be duped by them?

Is ChatGPT plagiarism?

No, ChatGPT isn’t necessarily plagiarism in and of itself, but the produced text can have re-used phrases within it, which does raise the argument.

Additionally, while ChatGPT can have its uses, leveraging it for such things as school work, or for tasks you are being paid to do on your own, shouldn’t be the way to go about it. Especially given the fact that teachers now are finding ways of detecting when a paper has been written by ChatGPT.

Does ChatGPT plagiarize Reddit?

In the truest sense, ChatGPT doesn’t plagiarize. Reddit posts have also suggested that using ChatGPT isn’t plagiarism, and doesn’t flag as plagiarism in tests.

What’s important is that ChatGPT doesn’t knowingly copy or use others’ text. However, it will offer responses learned from the data it has been trained on, meaning it can offer responses that are like those found elsewhere – like a human may. We can consider how ChatGPT was trained using text from books, websites, and blogs to see why this is the case.

If you are wondering “does ChatGPT plagiarize Reddit?” specifically, there’s no suggestion that is the case. It is possible though that ChatGPT was trained on text data that is available on Reddit.

Which is the best plagiarism checker?

If you are looking for a reliable plagiarism checker, we recommend Turnitin. Turnitin does not necessarily detect plagiarism but does measure how similar your work is to other sources. It is a highly advanced tool and is trusted by many universities and colleges.

If you are looking for an AI detector, we recommend GPTZero. This model can scan through any text (250 words minimum) and produce an AI likelihood score. And according to the creator, the model has 98% accuracy.

Final Thoughts

ChatGPT is not plagiarism insofar as it is not copying the work of someone else outright. However, it is somewhat questionable from an academic integrity standpoint, in the sense that if you use an answer or essay generated by the chatbot, you have not created the work yourself.

There are AI detectors and plagiarism detection tools that are becoming more sophisticated seemingly by the day, and we predict that getting away with submissions that are largely ai-generated content will become more difficult in the months to come.