Many Universities and high schools banned the use of ChatGPT when it was first released last year over fears of cheating on assignment writing. A new research by Stanford University found that “the percentage of high school students who cheat remains statistically unchanged compared to previous years without ChatGPT”.

While there are individual alarming cases in the news about AI being used for cheating, we are seeing little evidence that the needle has moved for high schoolers overall.

We are only a little over a year into ChatGPT capturing public attention, so we all should expect some shifts over time with schools, work, and daily life. A lot depends on how schools choose to approach AI as a topic and a tool, which could move things in either direction.

– Victor Lee, Stanford University on CNN

The CNN, referring to the recent finding from the research center Pew, writes that only 19% of teens ages 13 to 17 have used the platform for schoolwork, whereas only two-thirds of teens have even heard of ChatGPT.

Referring to the Stanford survey, CNN added “The survey also revealed students believe the tool should be allowed for “starter” purposes with assignments, such as asking it to generate new concepts or ideas for an assignment. Most of the respondents, however, agreed it should not be used to write a paper.”

Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education who also helped oversee the survey, told CNN, “It shows that a majority of students truly want to learn and see AI as a way to help them – as opposed to seeing it only as a tool to ‘do school’ and cut corners or save time as they complete assignments”.

According to CNN, schools are also changing their approach to essay writing assignments to an in-classroom essay approach rather than as homework. Some schools are said to be teaching how to use AI in the classroom as a writing tool by “offering university-wide training and workshops to faculty and students”.

Jules White, an associate professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University, told CNN, “I think it’s incredibly important for students, faculty and alumni to become experts in AI because it will be so transformative across every industry in demand so we provide the right training.”