Students Using Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Exams and Assignments

Dr Wan Rizal asked the Minister for Education (a) whether there are cases of cheating among students in schools and Institutes of Higher Learning in relation to the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT; and (b) what measures are put in place to detect plagiarism.

Dr Lim Wee Kiak asked the Minister for Education (a) whether the Ministry is studying the trend of the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology among international student bodies to cheat in exams and assignments; (b) whether similar instances have happened locally; (c) how does the Ministry plan to address this issue in Singapore’s education system; and (d) how will the Ministry guide educators to harness the use of AI to enhance learning while ensuring that students do not misuse AI technology for cheating or any other unethical behaviour.

Dr Shahira Abdullah asked the Minister for Education what are schools doing to prevent potential abuses of artificial intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT.

Mr Speaker, Sir, Members have asked how the Ministry of Education (MOE) plans to address the use of ChatGPT and similar Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in schools and Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), and in particular, how MOE will prevent students from misusing ChatGPT.

Mr Speaker, let me first say this: as with any technology, ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools present both opportunities and challenges to users. Both challenges and opportunities.

These technologies are in our midst and will become more pervasive over time. Therefore, MOE provides educators in schools and IHLs with guidance and resources to effectively harness it to enhance learning. There are also professional discussion groups amongst our educators to explore its use in the education setting.

At the same time, our educators will still teach students to understand fundamental concepts and guide students against developing an over-reliance on technological tools.

For example, just like how a calculator supports students' capacity for learning mathematics but that does not replace the need for our students to first master basic mathematical operations. ChatGPT can be a useful tool for learning only when students have mastered basic concepts and thinking skills. In a more uncertain world, we must also teach our students to embrace and learn to work with tools in the new normal that have a range of outcomes beyond a deterministic outcome like a calculator. This would extend to AI tools that will increase in pervasiveness and may not provide only deterministic answers.

Our educators will also help students understand how AI tools like ChatGPT work. As ChatGPT can provide inaccurate or biased output depending on its inputs, students need to be discerning and critically assess its output for accuracy and objectivity.

Schools and IHLs adopt a range of practices to guard against misuse of this technology. In their daily work, students are taught the importance of integrity and the harmful impact and consequences of plagiarism. In addition, teachers use multiple modes of assessment to gauge students' proficiency and detect uncharacteristic responses that could be AI-generated content.

Our IHLs have varied modes of assessment including examinations, presentations and projects that require analysis, field notes and observational details that cannot be generated easily by AI technology. A wide variety of strategies are adopted to detect plagiarism in assignments, including technological tools to detect content generated by AI technology. These approaches will necessarily evolve over time.

Our schools equip students with important skills such as assimilating concepts and applying them to new and dynamic situations, self-directed and collaborative learning, inventive thinking, relationship management and cross-cultural skills. These skills are not easily replaced by technological tools and acquired through leadership roles, interdisciplinary project work and various forms of experiential learning.

And I must emphasise this, in this new world, the critical skill for our students to acquire are: how to discover, distil and to discern and if possible, create or develop something new in the process. All these efforts are sustained as students enter our IHLs, where the curriculum has also been enhanced to help students develop baseline digital competencies, as well as life skills to better navigate work and adulthood. Our schools and IHLs will continue to equip students with digital competencies and values to enable them to harness technology confidently and responsibly.

And finally, Mr Speaker, Sir, for the record, this answer has been provided by my hardworking MOE officers and not by ChatGPT. [Laughter.]

Mr Speaker, thank you. I would like to thank the Minister for sharing the positives and negatives of ChatGPT. To be honest, when I started writing the Parliamentary Question (PQ), I was concerned with ChatGPT being used pervasively by students and giving them an advantage. But over time, after using it myself extensively and testing it against my essay questions and seeing how it can be caught for plagiarism, I understand that it is quite important that we teach our students the importance of using AI-related tools. I think that this is the wave that we should embark on.

I would like to ask the Minister: would the Ministry consider having courses that would encourage people to make use of AI-related tools for their work in the future?

Mr Speaker, Sir. The answer is yes. Indeed, we have a plan and we are already conducting courses for our educators to help them understand both the potential and the challenges of such AI technologies. We have discussion groups within the professional community on how to harness the potential of such technologies for us to improve the education system.

Similarly, we would also like to equip our students with the skillsets to learn how to use this responsibly. Because as I have mentioned, in the new world, it is not just about trying to find a deterministic answer like learning how to use a calculator, where one plus one always equals to two. In the new world, we need to be able to work with a range of possible outcomes and consider them holistically. That is why, I have been emphasising to all my students and teachers that the new skillsets for us in this generation is learning how to discover, to distil and finally, to discern. And if possible, to develop or create something new in the process because our value-add today is not about trying to answer yesterday's problems with yesterday's answer. Our value-add is how to create tomorrow's solutions for tomorrow's challenges ahead of time. These are new skillsets that we must all acquire and help our students to acquire.

Thank you, Sir. I would like to ask the Minister one supplementary question regarding whether the policy governing the use of AI, especially in relation to cheating, is very clearly spelled out now for all the schools? And do the students know this as well? In what way has the communication been done? And finally, have any cases been detected so far and what are the penalties?

Mr Speaker, Sir. The answer to Dr Lim's question is this: cheating is cheating. Cheating is not tolerated in any of our education institutions. Cheating may take the form of conventional cheating or cheating may take new forms, like that enabled by new technologies.

So, this is always an evergreen challenge that we have to overcome. But it requires two parts in the solutioning. The first part is how to detect cheating is our examinations, tests and so forth. And that is, again, a bit like a "cat and mouse" game where if you improve your technologies, the other side may also try to come up with other new and innovation ways. But that is the technical aspect. I think the more important aspect is how we educate our people to understand the fundamental values, hold on to the fundamental values, how we impart them the values such that they understand why they are doing what they are doing.

In the learning process, it is not about coming out with an answer to give the answer and submit it to the teachers or to the examination board. What is more important is also the process of trying to get to the answer and how you derive that answer. And if some tools can help you to derive a better answer, so be it. But we expect all our students to declare, truthfully, where their sources of information may come from. And even then, they must be able to go back to the three "D"s that I mentioned: discover, distil and discern. And that, must not change.