The death of the short-form physics essay in the coming AI revolution

Abstract

Abstract The latest AI language modules can produce original, high quality full short-form (300-word) Physics essays within seconds. These technologies such as ChatGPT and davinci-003 are freely available to anyone with an internet connection. In this work, we present evidence of AI generated short-form essays achieving First-Class grades on an essay writing assessment from an accredited, current university Physics module. The assessment requires students answer five open-ended questions with a short, 300-word essay each. Fifty AI answers were generated to create ten submissions that were independently marked by five separate markers. The AI generated submissions achieved an average mark of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>71</mml:mn> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">%</mml:mi> </mml:math> , in strong agreement with the current module average of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>71</mml:mn> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> <mml:mn>5</mml:mn> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">%</mml:mi> </mml:math> . A typical AI submission would therefore most-likely be awarded a First Class, the highest classification available at UK universities. Plagiarism detection software returned a plagiarism score between <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:math> % (Grammarly) and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>7</mml:mn> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:math> % (TurnitIn). We argue that these results indicate that current natural language processing AI represent a significant threat to the fidelity of short-form essays as an assessment method in Physics courses.

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