“For Chinese Students, the New Tactic Against AI Checks: More AI”, 2024-06-05 (; backlinks):
In recent months, Chinese universities have begun using advanced AI systems to detect machine-generated content in dissertations. In response, students, including those who did not initially use chatbots, are turning to AI tools to ensure their work passes these stringent checks.
Just 3 days before her thesis deadline, Wen Suyu raced to revise her nearly 30,000-character dissertation. Despite writing most of the content herself, she feared it might still be flagged as AI-generated text.
After 8 long hours of editing, the AI detection rate had dropped only slightly, 17% → 14%. Desperate, she turned to PaperPass, a service that promised to lower AI detection rates, and paid 360 yuan ($50). “The AI detection rate fell to 7%, but the text did not resemble human language at all”, Wen, a senior at a university in southern China’s Guangdong province, tells Sixth Tone.
Across the country, many students are grappling with the same dilemma as the rapid adoption of AI software meets increasingly stringent university standards. To uphold academic integrity, Chinese universities are now using advanced systems to identify AI-generated content in student dissertation.s
…This year alone, at least 15 universities have announced they will evaluate the AI-generated content (AIGC) percentage in students’ dissertations, with some requiring students to disclose any AI usage. The passing threshold varies from less than 20% to 40%, while some schools have not disclosed their standards. Most use the VIP Paper Check System, a long-standing plagiarism checker used in universities that also added a function to detect AI Ghostwriting last year amid rising concerns about machine-generated content. The system claims to detect text produced by AI models like ChatGPT, Baidu’s Ernie Bot, and iFlytek’s SparkDesk and presents a suspected AIGC rate of mild, moderate, or high.
As detection systems become more sophisticated and the pressure to outsmart these technologies intensifies, many students are turning to online communities for help. On the lifestyle app Xiaohongshu alone, over 10,000 posts share tips on reducing “AI detection rates”, with some students reporting detection rates of over 60%. Services to lower AI rates, often offered by ghostwriting agencies, are also in high demand on e-commerce platforms like Taobao.