- The Ethics Issue of AI-Assisted Creation

I'm sure you have, at some point, seen those little ads for "essay writing services" in the bathroom stalls of a university administration building. You and I should have a consensus on this business: having someone else complete your thesis is unethical. In an era where the AI storm is sweeping the world, the one doing the "ghostwriting" no longer needs to be a real person. A quick search for online large language model services will reveal a plethora of flashy websites.

Initially, schools maintained a high level of vigilance against this trend, banning students from using such services for homework and papers, and adding an "AI writing detection" step to the graduation thesis review process. However, as prompt engineering becomes more refined, and various new models and fine-tuned versions appear one after another, the early detection services designed for a single model like GPT will likely become unable to handle these complex situations. Furthermore, as the conversational style of large language models continues to permeate the internet, the writing style of readers will also begin to converge with that of generated text. All these changes point to a clear outcome: it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine whether the author of a piece of writing is a real person.

Oh, holy cow, it looks like the end of the world is coming! We can no longer prevent students from "slacking off and cheating on their homework"! The future of our nation has been defiled! The education system is going to collapse! Our future is doomed to be bleak! Humanity will soon be replaced by AI!

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Something's not right here.

If I understand correctly, the purpose of a tool is to solve a problem. But according to this line of reasoning, it seems like the tool is "solving" the person. What problem were we originally trying to solve when we developed AI systems in the first place?

This article is a prelude to "When Will the Homunculus in the Flask Awaken?," "The Next Step in Education," and "AI Will Not Eat You." I encourage you to read the first three articles before continuing with this one.

Solving Problems

Let's start with some simple psychological concepts. The reason we want to "do something" is because of the "motivation" behind it. What triggers motivation is a "need," and this "need" is a "problem" that we pose.

When you think of "motivation," an image of a wicked archvillain might pop into your head. In a castle glowing with purple light, he chuckles, rubbing his hands together with a sinister grin: "Aha! What is my motivation!" But in reality, motivation itself does not carry such a heavy moral weight.

If we ascend Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we find that "needs" simply reflect our everyday lives.

For example, it's late at night and you're hungry. Your need is "hunger," so you pose a question: "How can I fill my stomach?" You start to solve this problem. You open the fridge and find nothing appealing, so you grab a packet of instant noodles from the cupboard. You tear open the packaging, put the noodles, egg, and seasoning into a bowl, add some water, and microwave it for a few minutes. A fragrant bowl of noodles is ready. You enjoy your meal, then lie down comfortably in bed, ready for a good night's sleep.

As you toss and turn in bed, a question suddenly pops into your head: "Did I lock the door after taking out the trash this evening?" Now you have a need for "security." To answer this question, you get out of bed and check the door lock. "It really wasn't locked! Good thing I checked!" Your heart, which was in your throat, settles down, and you can finally sleep soundly.

In a state of half-sleep, a happy memory of eating cake with your friends comes to mind. You really want to hang out with your friends again. This is a need for "love and belonging." To answer this "problem," you think to yourself that you'll message your friends in the group chat tomorrow to arrange a meal and have that delicious cake again.

Beyond these, you also have needs to "relax," to "be seen, recognized, and feel a sense of accomplishment," to "explore yourself," and to "write poetry in the vegetable garden." Every action we take corresponds to a need. These needs are translated by the brain into motivations and are thus perceived by us in the form of "problems." Once the brain poses a problem, we must begin to "write the answer." If you have read the previous articles in this AI series, you will surely know the rest of the story, so we won't repeat it here.

So, for a student, what kind of need does "writing a paper or an essay" correspond to? If we think about this question from a "great, bright, and upright" perspective, the answer would surely be "to convey one's thoughts" and "to explore unknown knowledge." But the reality is often bleak. For many students, the problem they are trying to solve might be the fear of "failing a course" or the anxiety...