Jean-Luc Boujon (correspondent in Lyon) 07:51, 06 April 2023

In Annecy, the French company Compilatio has developed software capable of detecting text composed by artificial intelligence. A technique that may prove useful in particular to fight against plagiarism in the school setting.

Although fascinating, artificial intelligence is also worrying. Able to write an essay or a presentation on any subject, she could well encourage cheating during an exam for example. How do you know if students have used artificial intelligence? The French company Compilatio, based in Annecy in Haute-Savoie, is preparing to launch software that can detect fraud. Europe 1 went to meet this little gem of technology.

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Predictability of texts

The system is simple. It is enough to present a written text to the software. "I paste my text and I will press the 'start detection' button. We wait a few seconds and here the result is fallen. This text has been recognized as generated by artificial intelligence", explains Frédéric Agnès, director of Compilatio.

The certainty rate of detection is 90%, including against the latest version of ChatGPT released a few days ago. Frédéric Agnès explains the principle: "The software analyzes stylistic aspects such as the predictability of the words used, the regularity of sentences, punctuation. ChatGPT is a system that tries to produce the most likely text possible much like when you type text on your phone and it offers you the words that might interest you. This predictability of texts can allow us to characterize whether a text is human or machine-generated."

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This tool is likely to be very useful for teachers already facing this type of cheating. The software should be released next May or June.