Prof. Jared Mumm, ran their paper text through Chat GPT and asked it if Chat GPT (which he misspelled GTP) had created the papers. Chat GPT said yes, even though it does not have an ability to make that judgement. In fact, Chat GPT even claimed to have authored other works that were not written by Chat GPT.
Regardless of his ineptness, he issued all students an incomplete.
Texas A&M University–Commerce seniors who have already graduated were denied their diplomas because of an instructor who incorrectly used AI software to detect cheating
Source: Professor Flunks All His Students After ChatGPT Falsely Claims It Wrote Their Papers
He allegedly flunked everyone in multiple classes.
The anxiety and stress this caused to students is immense. For those that may already suffer anxiety related issues, this was extraordinarily cruel. When students presented time stamps of draft versions, he responded with “I don’t grade AI bullshit”.
Yet when a student submitted Dr. Mumm’s own doctoral thesis to Chat GPT, Chat GPT said that it could have been the author of his thesis.
Will there be any consequences of his incompetence? Unlikely other than perhaps some very negative teaching reviews.
Note – I have taught dozens of college and university courses. About 20 years ago, I had students do anonymous peer reviews of each other’s papers and submit the feedback to the student (this was run through me so students did not now whose papers they were reviewing nor who wrote which comments). They were to incorporate the feedback into their final paper. I also, of course, read every paper and provided feedback.
Two students alerted me to papers they read that contained obvious plagiarized content. That caused me to start searching their text online. About 1/3d of papers contained plagiarized content – most were simple errors of having failed to properly quote and cite the original source. But a few engaged in wholesale copy and paste operations.
There was no excuse for these errors – I had given an entire lecture on the goals of the final paper, with information and importance of using properly referenced material, provided them with sample papers (with permission of past students), so they could see what a well done research paper should look like. I finished the lecture noting there are consequences for cheating – citing some cases where PhD degrees had been rescinded because of cheating. I also gave the students a written handout on producing their final paper.
The incident was big enough that it was raised to the Dean and led to new procedures. This was two decades before Chat GPT – but aligned with widespread access to the Internet and the ability to easily find, copy and paste content from online web sites.
