How long does it take for AI to complete a college thesis?

20–This is the maximum number of minutes required by artificial intelligence (AI) to complete a college essay.

Artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) are very close to being able to imitate human writing in a more meaningful way than ever before. Future development will greatly change our relationship with software, algorithms and machines.

In EduRef (a website that provides resources for students and teachers) the most recentIn a study, The researchers found that AI takes 3 to 20 minutes to complete a college thesis. Human students and recent graduates also participated in the experiment. On average, a human writer needs three days to complete the same task.

The artificial intelligence system used is GPT-3. GPT-3 by OpenAI Created, OpenAI is a research and deployment company whose stated goal is to "ensure that general artificial intelligence benefits all mankind." The organization was co-founded by Elon Musk. GPT-3 was released in June 2020 and aims to use the structure of human language to create better content than any current AI system.

Back to those college papers. This is how the experiment works.

The researchers convened a group of professors to assign essay assignments for artificial intelligence and human writers. Topics include creative writing, law, research methods (especially the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine), and American history. Artificial intelligence failed in only one task, while the average score was "C" in the other four topics. Its highest grade is the "B-" of American history and law. The professors did not know that artificial intelligence was involved in the experiment.

The most surprising thing is that AI and human writers have basically received the same feedback from their professors.

"Although 49.2% in the comments on the work of GPT-3 is related to grammar and syntax, 26.2% is about key points and details. Voice and organization are also mentioned, but there are only 12.3% and 10.8% respectively," EduRef said of their experimental report. "Similarly, our human writers receive almost the same proportion of comments. Nearly 50% comments in human papers are related to grammar and syntax, and 25.4% is related to key points and details. Comments over 13% are about human use of sound, while 10.41 TP1T is related to the organization."

In the past few years, NLP and AI have evolved to the point where it is now generally possible to create copies that have context and appear to be written by humans. Nevertheless, NLP still has insurmountable problems. So far, artificial intelligence has not been able to understand its own words, and often come up with meaningless combinations of words and sentences. 

If this latest experiment from EduRef is credible, then the research suggests that artificial intelligence may have learned how to reproduce human writing more accurately, so that university professors cannot even tell that it is not from humans. 

There are significant differences between artificial intelligence and human writing.

"We asked raters what they thought of the GPT-3 paper and the'authors' behind it, but did not let them know our AI secrets. Although they received passing scores in research methods, U.S. history, and law, the professors were very positive about GPT. -3 There is nothing to say," EduRef's report said. "The research method grader pointed out that the'students' writing level is average, and it is necessary to work hard to improve the clarity and concentration of the topic. Although the professor who graded the history assignment said that the prose of GPT-3 is fluent at the sentence level, they are also Point out that the'writer' does not think critically."

This may not be a question of "if" but "when" artificial intelligence has developed enough to truly imitate human writing. When this happens, it will permanently change the way we write, communicate, and interact with machines.