3 things from which I can definitely tell that ChatGPT wrote your thesis

If you've always been late with your assignments and suddenly you're pulling Jane Austen novels and think you might be suspicious, I have some bad news: you really are. Accusations of plagiarism are very serious, they can even get you kicked out of the university, so don't rely on AI at all or exclusively, and you shouldn't choose a professional who uses AI either. We do not use artificial intelligence when writing our essays. How can you recognize if a thesis is not the product of a human brain? Here are some signs that'll give away that you're using ChatGPT in 0.2 seconds:

1. Lack of figures and visualizations

In the past, theses were often full of figures and diagrams, which often served to increase the number of pages. In the era of AI, however, there are more and more "pure" text papers. If there are almost no visual elements in a work, it raises the question: is there software behind it? AI is currently only able to interpret and create complex graphics to a limited extent, which leads to the dominance of text-oriented works.

2. Questionable sources and links

Although AI is capable of generating believable-sounding texts, it often happens that the reliability of links is questionable. The emergence of fictional sources or literature that seems to exist but cannot actually be verified is a serious problem. So AI can compose text for you. Even the reference can look real, e.g. "Whoever, 2008". What's more, you may also create the reference in the appropriate format, e.g. "Whoever, Z. (2008). The life of puppies and bunnies. London: Publisher Ltd.". But it may be a fictional source that never existed. You can go down amazingly fast with this.

If you cannot find a source in any authentic database, or the given DOI does not lead anywhere, it may be an indication that the text was generated by AI. Always check the authenticity of the sources, because if you don't, your consultant will!

3. Linguistic peculiarities

Certain language patterns often occur in Hungarian texts written by ChatGPT. If the wording is a bit stiff, the structure of the sentences seems foreign, as if it were just a literal translation from another language, then it is possible that machine intelligence is behind it. Here are two example sentences:

AI sentence example: "There are some techniques used in this study and one of them is Sentiment analysis, which aims at evaluating the mood in streamers descriptions. Mentioning the fact that sentiment analysis is possible when using natural language processing methods, it can be stated that trends and correlations between the languages used by streamers can be revealed. his method offers a glimpse to how the negative emotion expressed in the stream description impacts the viewers and their inclinations to donate or not."

Human wording example: "In the study, we used sentiment analysis to evaluate the tone of streamers' introductions, as certain trends can be revealed between the language used by streamers and the success of campaigns. Sentiment analysis is possible using natural language processing methods. With this method, we can determine how the emotions expressed in the stream's description affect the viewers' willingness to donate."

What are the consequences if they find out that we cheated with ChatGPT?

While using AI writing tools may seem tempting, it's important to know that there can be serious consequences if you fail. Here are some reasons why you should think twice before entrusting your dissertation to machine intelligence:

  1. More and more advanced detectors: The technologies that identify AI writings are developing rapidly. GPT detectors are becoming more accurate and in some cases are already built into, or will soon be built into, the plagiarism checking software that universities routinely use. These systems are able to recognize AI-generated texts, so the risk of failure increases significantly.

  2. Serious consequences: If it turns out that we did not submit our own work, it can lead to serious accusations of plagiarism. This not only means that they will fail the subject, but in the worst case they can even be kicked out of the university. This type of defamation can have long-term consequences for our further academic and professional careers.