Machine learning has always been the great hope for automating a variety of tasks. However, writing was often seen as something that could never be automated. Significant progress has been made over the years, and tools like OpenAI are making it easier than ever before to streamline the essay writing process.
For students looking to streamline their academic journeys, new open-source tools could offer essay help that was simply never available in the past.
What is Artificial Intelligence and Why is Machine Learning Crucial?
Artificial intelligence has become a major factor in the modern world. However, when combined with machine learning artificial intelligence has the capacity it needs to essentially be taught to produce.
With regards to essay writing, machine learning has become the core of its acquired logic. In many ways, it is the same way as teaching someone how to read or write, but it can be done in a matter of days and weeks.
Over time, it is hoped that artificial intelligence will be able to largely replace human writers in many areas. This could potentially upend the entire way higher education works. It may mean the humble essay becomes obsolete because there would be no way of effectively barring anyone from simply pressing a button and receiving an A+ grade.
What Does this Mean for Essay Writing?
Perhaps the biggest advantage to the world of essay writing is many AI projects are open-source. This means the code is publicly available and anyone can use it to build their own applications and advance on it.
For example, the Washington Post has developed Heliograf, which allows them to produce news articles and social media posts without the need for a human to write a single sentence. Another example of this in action is the Associated Press, which is using AI to write hundreds of sports reports every single week.
Reporting is one thing, but writing an essay from scratch surely cannot be possible?
This is untrue because it is already happening. Once the content has been learned through machine learning, essay writing is within reach. This is because essays are typically graded based on logical, well-defined criteria.
AI programs will eventually be able to produce essays that meet all the necessary academic criteria.
When is AI Essay Writing Likely to Become a Factor?
OpenAI has already seen use in the field of academic writing through its text-writing algorithm GPT-2. Initially, it was thought too dangerous to be released into the world, but eventually the neural network was published, and people have put it to work.
Students have reported using this software to write their essays for them. However, reports coming in state that the final reports produced are pretty poor.
This highlights the significant differences from writing reports on what’s happening in the world and forming complex arguments in an academic setting.
What is clear in 2020 is that the software available is not sufficient to produce high-quality academic papers. However, the neural network GPT-2 has formed the basis for incredible things going forward.
The increasing power of machine learning means that it is not inconceivable that we will see an open-source algorithm with the capacity to produce quality academic essays in the future.
Conclusion
AI and machine learning are advancing at a huge rate. Only now is it starting to become feasible for use in settings beyond simple news articles. The software available to us still has a long way to go before it can write complex arguments better than a human can.
Does this mean students can simply press a button and have their assignment completed?
Not yet. Students still require the knowledge to use such programs and must provide the oversight necessary to ensure the essay produced is fit for submission. While it is an exciting piece of news, students should not be putting away their books just yet.