Nearly two years after ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, college professors across the United States are grappling with an unprecedented wave of AI-generated plagiarism that has fundamentally transformed academic integrity. Darren Hick, a philosophy professor at Furman University who first encountered AI-generated essays in late 2022, describes the situation as a “virus” that has spread throughout academia. “All plagiarism has become AI plagiarism at this point,” Hick told Business Insider, reflecting on how vulnerable traditional assignments have become to AI exploitation.
Students were among the earliest adopters of AI text generators like ChatGPT, quickly recognizing their potential to produce complete essays and assist with assignments from scratch. This rapid adoption has created a cascade of problems: rising plagiarism rates, false accusations of cheating, and a deteriorating atmosphere of trust between educators and students. The situation has become so pervasive that many professors are radically restructuring their teaching methods.
Christopher Bartel, a philosophy professor at Appalachian State University, has dramatically shifted his assessment approach. Before ChatGPT, 100% of his classes consisted of take-home essays. Now, only around 30% are essay-based, with most reserved for upper-level students. He has reintroduced in-class, handwritten examinations as a safeguard against AI plagiarism. Surprisingly, Bartel reports that students have been receptive to these changes, understanding the challenges professors face.
The challenge is compounded by the lack of institutional guidance. “There’s no top-down national guidance,” Bartel explained. “There isn’t even at the university level, top-down guidance on it.” This vacuum has left individual departments and instructors to develop their own policies, creating confusion and inconsistency across institutions.
Detecting AI-generated content has become increasingly difficult as models improve. Hick notes that “a lot of the tells are gone now,” with remaining indicators becoming more subtle. AI detection tools have proven unreliable, with OpenAI itself acknowledging in its educator FAQs that “in short, no” reliable method exists to distinguish AI-generated from human-generated content. This creates a risk of falsely penalizing innocent students.
The additional workload of investigating potential AI plagiarism is exhausting already overworked educators. “It feels like we’re spinning plates,” Hick said. “You can only keep those plates in the air for so long before you’re just exhausted.” Adam Nguyen, founder of tutoring company Ivy Link, describes the current situation as “the Wild Wild West,” with technology and use cases still evolving while universities struggle to establish coherent policies.
Key Quotes
All plagiarism has become AI plagiarism at this point. I look back at the sort of assignments that I give in my classes and realize just how ripe they are for AI plagiarism.
Darren Hick, philosophy professor at Furman University, describes how pervasive AI-generated plagiarism has become since he first encountered it in late 2022. This quote illustrates how traditional academic assignments have become fundamentally vulnerable to AI exploitation.
There’s no top-down national guidance. There isn’t even at the university level, top-down guidance on it. It comes down to departments or sometimes individual instructors — there’s a lot of confusion over that.
Christopher Bartel, philosophy professor at Appalachian State University, highlights the institutional vacuum in AI policy. This lack of coordinated response has left educators to individually navigate complex ethical and practical challenges without support.
It feels like we’re spinning plates or something. We’re going to get more tired. You can only keep those plates in the air for so long before you’re just exhausted.
Darren Hick describes the unsustainable workload created by investigating AI plagiarism. This quote captures the burnout educators face as they add detective work to already demanding schedules, highlighting the human cost of AI disruption in education.
While some (including OpenAI) have released tools that purport to detect AI-generated content, none of these have proven to reliably distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated content.
OpenAI’s own acknowledgment in its educator FAQs that AI detection tools don’t work reliably. This admission from the creator of ChatGPT itself underscores the technical impossibility of solving the plagiarism problem through detection alone.
Our Take
This article reveals a critical inflection point where AI capabilities have outpaced institutional adaptation. The situation in academia serves as a canary in the coal mine for broader societal challenges. What’s particularly striking is the admission from OpenAI that detection is impossible—essentially acknowledging they’ve created a problem without a technical solution. The return to handwritten exams represents a retreat to pre-digital methods, suggesting that some AI disruptions may be irreversible rather than manageable. The real issue isn’t just cheating; it’s that AI has fundamentally broken traditional assessment models that have existed for centuries. Universities must move beyond detection and punishment toward reimagining what education means in an AI-augmented world. The exhaustion expressed by professors like Hick foreshadows similar burnout across industries as workers struggle to adapt to AI tools that simultaneously promise productivity gains while creating new oversight burdens. This story demonstrates that AI integration isn’t just a technical challenge—it’s an institutional, ethical, and human one.
Why This Matters
This story highlights a fundamental crisis in higher education that extends far beyond simple cheating concerns. The widespread adoption of AI tools like ChatGPT represents the most significant technological disruption to academic assessment since the internet, forcing a complete rethinking of how we evaluate learning and knowledge acquisition. The lack of coordinated institutional response reveals how unprepared educational systems are for rapid AI advancement.
The implications extend to workforce preparation and skill development. If students rely on AI to complete assignments, they may graduate without developing critical thinking, writing, and research skills essential for professional success. This creates a potential skills gap that could impact business productivity and innovation.
The situation also reflects broader societal challenges around AI governance and regulation. The absence of clear guidelines in academia mirrors similar confusion in business, government, and other sectors grappling with AI integration. How educational institutions resolve these issues may provide a template for other industries facing similar disruptions. The burnout experienced by professors attempting to police AI use foreshadows challenges that managers and compliance officers will face across all sectors as AI tools become ubiquitous.
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Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-cheating-colleges-plagiarism-chatgpt-professor-2024-9