SEATTLE — In Kira Hopkins' 16 years teaching Language Arts to seniors at West Seattle High School, addressing plagiarism is nothing new.
“We’re down to the wire and I haven’t done anything and I have to produce something and this is one way to get something in there,” said Hopkins.
Now, instead of turning to another person’s writing, they’re using sites like ChatGPT which is a large language model. Essentially, you put in a prompt and a computer formulates a written response, like an essay.
"I’ve been reading student writing and teaching writing and the process of writing for years and I know the students' writing," Hopkins said. "At the same time, I don’t have any way to prove that because the methods of checking that are still somewhat unreliable."
ChatGPT is currently blocked on school equipment for students in the Seattle Public Schools District.
"Nothing is set in stone yet in terms of a policy or procedure district-wide. That could be coming down the road but for right now, it’s mostly learning as they go along,” said Tim Robinson who is the district's spokesperson.
“You block one site and it’s like whack-a-mole, more keep popping up,” said University of Washington Information School Professor Jason Yip.
Yip went on to say this technology brings up questions about how students are taught.
“Individual teachers need to answer, the school district needs to answer, curriculum developers need to answer, what is the role of education at this point especially as these tools start to become more proficient?”
Hopkins is having those discussions with her students and finding ways to efficiently use AI.
“I think that’s what our schools need to figure out how to talk about, is how it can be useful, how it can be unethical or ethical ways of using it," Hopkins said.