The risk of plagiarism in the academic world has always existed. However, with the democratization of large language models, this risk has increased. In this context, some tools can accurately identify copied and replicated texts. One such tool is Plag.es, a multilingual plagiarism detector that is able to distinguish between what a human writes and what a machine writes. Since ChatGPT has gained popularity, many students use it for various tasks, such as writing text comments and essays and even for online exams.
At Neosmart, we spoke to the CEO and founder, Chorst Klaus, who explained how his technology works and its applications in education.
How did Plag.es come about and what can you do with this tool?
Plag.es was developed in response to the major problem of plagiarism in academic texts. Today, our tool can compare texts with articles from academic databases, check the accuracy of paraphrases and detect attempts to deceive authenticity checking programs. Recently, we introduced a multilingual AI detection tool that ensures academic integrity in the current context.
As founders, we started our business journey by offering writing services and helping students with their coursework, bachelor's and master's theses. However, over time, we realized the ethical issues associated with this activity and decided to make a change. To stay in the field of educational services, we developed the Identific and Plag.es systems, which are now used by universities in 35 countries and have over 1 million users annually.
How can this tool detect plagiarism? What parameters or aspects does it focus on?
The Plag.es technology was developed to be multilingual from the start. It is the world's first truly multilingual match detection tool. Our system recognizes similarities with documents published only 10 minutes ago and works with 129 languages.
Through our collaboration with CORE, we provide access to millions of scientific articles. Our database of public sources includes books, journals, blogs and other publicly available materials. We continuously invest in the development and improvement of linguistic technologies to meet the needs of users and ensure reliable reviews worldwide.
What are the main unfair activities students use ChatGPT for?
A survey conducted in Spain in April found that students who use AI solutions use them for almost all tasks. Most (76%) use AI tools to search for information and more than a third (32%) use them for learning. A significant proportion of students are using these tools for non-routine purposes: more than half (68%) do their homework using AI, 40% write essays and almost 11% answer exam questions using AI.
The survey results send a clear message: the rapid development of AI tools is impacting all areas of our lives. We therefore need to respond quickly to the challenges they bring. This survey will spark debate in the education sector and encourage the search for beneficial interactions with this technology by rethinking teaching methods. We need to encourage critical thinking and creativity to ensure that these tools are used appropriately, academic ethics are upheld and future generations are not negatively impacted.
Should schools and universities ban or restrict the use of ChatGPT in any way?
We should not ban the technology. Instead, we should adapt our existing systems and teaching methods so that they do not negatively impact the development of students. We need to ensure that users and students have at least a basic knowledge of artificial intelligence and its applications.
Have you encountered any particular challenges when applying this new technology in a specific area?
Yes, every language is different. Each language must have its own independent language model for AI recognition to avoid false positives. A language model needs to be updated along with updates such as ChatGPT to maintain the quality of the service.
Should teachers' use of ChatGPT and other major language models also be monitored?
We should focus on creating a certain tradition or etiquette for how students or teachers should use AI. Monitoring will be a necessary aspect that will help us understand the current state and determine if updates have been implemented correctly.
Is there a difference between countries? Are there students from certain countries or regions who plagiarize more than others? Is Spanish plagiarized more than other languages?
There is a difference. Nevertheless, we cannot determine the exact extent of plagiarism using automatic statistics, but we can extrapolate it to grades. In Germany, for example, the average score of articles is 7.5%, in Spain 16.3% and in Russia 32.3%. So we can not say that Spaniards plagiarize twice as often as Germans. Nevertheless, the content of Spanish newspapers is less unique and more likely to be plagiarized.
Why do you offer Plag.es free of charge to educators and not to other professionals? What is the limitation in this regard?**
Traditionally, educational institutions have the greatest demand for this type of service. In this way, we have been able to maximize the value created.
Apart from its ability as a plagiarism detector, how can Plag be useful for students to improve their work?
The most common use of the service is to protect against plagiarism. Some users also regularly check to see if their article was published elsewhere without permission. However, the demand for this service is low compared to the usual use.
What can we expect from Plag in the medium term? Are there any new features planned?
We will add more languages to our AI recognition. We are also working on an intelligent technology to detect plagiarism in translated texts.
How do you see the use of AI in education developing over the next five to ten years?
In general, we do not focus our planning on things that are likely to change because you can not build a sustainable business on things that change. We try to build our business on things that are likely to stay.
Technology could change education in ways we can not yet imagine. It could help us achieve personalized education that inspires and empowers learning. We can even imagine hard-to-imagine scenarios where AI connects with the human brain, providing access to an incredible amount of information and making institutions like schools and universities a thing of the past. What should remain, however, is the need for knowledge and the desire to know and learn.**