Something unexpected happened last night. Yesterday, I posted the beginning of a research statement that appeared to be written by ChatGPT, along with a note saying that PhD candidates submitting statements written by ChatGPT would not be invited for interviews. Before going to bed, I noticed the post was gaining unusual traction, hundreds of likes. I was really surprised. Checking the comments, I noticed some people were accusing me that I couldn’t be 100% sure the statement was AI-generated. I went to bed. At 2:30 am, I woke up with anxiety. I checked my phone. It was exploding with notifications. One person with 600k followers had shared my profile, accusing me of discriminating against non-native English speakers. Another said I was exposing a young researcher. Another even emailed the Director of my department, accusing me of inappropriate behavior. I spent the rest of the night awake, in anxiety... I considered deleting the post, but I believe it’d be more constructive for everyone if I publicly clarify my position. So, here are my responses: 1. Critique: I cannot reject a candidate because I believe their application is AI-generated, as it’s impossible to know for certain whether a text is AI-generated. It’s true that no algorithm can tell for sure if a text is AI-generated. However, we are discussing a specific piece of text, not a general one. The text contained dozens red flags, including words typically used by ChatGPT (intricate, delve…) and a suspicious change of font in the last sentence. Additionally, the statement continued in this manner for three pages, displaying red flag after red flag. The strongest indicator was the shape of the apostrophes: standard Calibri font has round apostrophes, GPT-generated text has straight ones. Moreover, the whole statement was superficial, lacking deep content; only form, no substance. At the end, I didn’t give it a zero - this was an exaggeration in my post to make a strong point, and I apologize for this - but I did give it a low grade, making it virtually impossible for the candidate to reach the interview. 2. Accusations of discrimination This accusation deeply hurt me and was likely the main reason I didn’t sleep all night. I have been politically active since I was a teenager, defending ideals of equity through volunteering and donations. Being accused of violating one of my foundational principles really hurt. Fortunately, it’s easy to address this criticism. I’m not discriminating against non-native English speakers for the simple reason that ALL our applicants are non-native English speakers. The accusation itself is just ridiculous. I’m simply giving a bad grade to a bad essay. Is this discrimination? 3. Exposing a student I take this point. I tried to prevent this criticism by removing personal information. However, I know that sharing private info in public is unjust. I take this point and I apologize for this. But, this should not obscure the real issue. The real problem that made so many people upset with my post isn’t that I exposed an anonymous individual. The problem is that I exposed a widespread behavior. In my work, I spend a significant amount of time reading essays at various levels, from research statements of PhD applicants to research articles. It’s alarming to see how many of these are written by generative AI. Millions of people use ChatGPT to replace their work. I personally use ChatGPT a lot. This post itself has traces of ChatGPT. But this isn’t a problem, as long as one uses ChatGPT to refine writing or suggest improvements. ChatGPT should be used for enhancing your work, not replacing it. Unfortunately, many people use ChatGPT to replace their work. This is bad for them (because they won’t improve) and to society overall, as we risk a regression to the mean. The message of my post was: don’t replace your unique contributions with average outputs. Be unique. I hope this clarifies my position. Thank you for reading.