An AI powered Chrome extension makes cheating even harder to detect
Yesterday, Undetectable.ai, a software known for its design to bypass AI content detectors, released a new tool that simulates human typing in Google Docs.
Essentially, the tool works by mimicking human typing patterns, even taking breaks, making mistakes, and correcting them. Why is this important?
Because many educators are using document analysis to see if a student actually typed their text, or if they copy and pasted from an app like ChatGPT.
This year, John Hopkins University listed Undetectable.ai as a technical challenge to AI detection, demonstrating just how aware academia of such tool.
Last month, GPTZero partnered with the American Federation of Teachers. In response to claims of “AI detectors” being inaccurate, some academic tools like GPTzero (through “Origin” chrome extension), and Originality.ai (through “Watch a Writer Write” extension) have moved away from “detecting” AI, to detecting human typing patterns.
Screenshot by Neil Bardard of GPTZero “Origin” extension writing report
GPTzero specifically looks at the the effort and time spent, typing patterns, and whether or not text is copy or pasted. Educators say that looking at the effort put into a document it vital to discerning academic integrity.
“I use Google Docs revision history and sometimes a tool called draftback” said Sherry Collins, a volunteer educator at USC.
But now that Undetectable.ai released a new extension that simulates human typing in Google docs, teachers are worried there’s nothing they can do. “Unless it’s directly plagiarized, there’s no recourse we have if a student can show proof they typed the document by hand,” says Collins.
According to the Undetectable.ai website, you simply have to “Copy and Paste Your Text” and then the bot will do “undetectable automated human typing“
Screen shot by Neil Bardard of Undetectable.ai/human-auto-typer-for-docs,
Luckily, it seems not many have used the tool yet, as according to it’s listing on the Google Chrome store, the “Human Auto Typer” hasn’t gotten any reviews yet.
Screenshot by Neil Bardard, of “Human Auto Typer,” Chrome extension
It Really Does Simulate Human Typing, and Its Scary
Out of curiosity I tested out the Auto Typer tool.” I downloaded Google Chrome extension, and subscribed to it for $5.
Next, I opened up a Google Doc, and pasted in a block of text from ChatGPT.
I was shocked, as the text I pasted began to realistically write out in front of me by itself.
The speed of the typing wasn’t fast, and but it wasn’t slow, and it seemed that every few words a mistake was made, and then corrected. When I checked the revision and document history, it was identical to something I would have typed by hand.
Despite it’s obvious appeal as a cheating tool, the purpose of the Chrome extension is for allegedly for demonstrations, privacy, and transferring legitimate documents without raising suspicion of copy’ing and pasting. But of course, students my find this an easy new tool to abuse.
The Bottom Line
Undetectable AI has already posed a challenge to educators with their “AI text humanizer,” but with the addition of their new Google Doc auto-typing tool, they make 10x more difficult to tell if someone is copy and pasting from ChatGPT.
As regulation talks continue in Capitol Hill, only the impact over time will tell how the new Undetectable tool will affect education and society.