Can Turnitin detect ChatGPT? This is a question many students and teachers will ask. How accurate and practical is Turnitin’s discovery of ChatGPT-generated content? This article will dive into the accuracy and shed light on the ability to identify ChatGPT-generated content, and maintain academic integrity in educational institutions.
Can Turnitin Detect ChatGPT?
Yes, Turnitin recently can detect AI content from ChatGPT.
Turnitin continuously works to improve its detection capabilities to address emerging challenges in maintaining academic integrity.
However, Turnitin’s ability to detect ChatGPT-generated content depends on its current algorithms and updates. While it mainly focuses on text similarities, its effectiveness in specifically identifying text generated by ChatGPT can vary.

How Does Turnitin Work And Detect ChatGPT Content?
Let’s find out how Turnitin detects content by ChatGPT and how it trains the model with the following information.
How does it work?
Turnitin uses a comprehensive process to detect content generated by ChatGPT. Initially, submitted articles were segmented into smaller text fragments to capture sentences in context. These segments undergo analysis using an AI detection model.
Then, the model checks each sentence with a score from 0 to 1, indicating whether a human or an AI wrote the sentence. By averaging the scores of all segments, Turnitin makes an overall prediction of the percentage of AI-generated writing text in submissions.
Currently, Turnitin’s AI writing detection model is specially trained to identify content from language models such as GPT-3 and GPT-3.5, including GPT-4 (ChatGPT Plus). However, Turnitin is working tirelessly to expand the model’s ability to detect content from other AI language models, ensuring a robust and accurate detection system.
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How was Turnitin’s model trained?
Turnitin’s model was trained using a diverse dataset, including AI-generated content and actual academic writing. The sample dataset is carefully curated to include representatives from various groups, including second language learners, non-native English speakers, and students from diverse institutions and subject areas that are less common. This comprehensive approach ensures the model’s effectiveness in various academic contexts.
How Accurate Is Turnitin’s Detection Of ChatGPT?

Turnitin’s detector of ChatGPT content aims to maintain an accuracy rate of less than 1% for false positives, where human-written text is misidentified as AI-generated.
To achieve this, up to 15% of AI-written text could potentially be missed in a document. Turnitin conducted extensive testing on many academic papers, including those before the release of ChatGPT, to validate their false-positive rates.
For recent updates, it includes additional metrics for documents with less than 20% text in AI, increased minimum word count requirements, and revised sentence synthesis methods to reduce the number of wrong words. Turnitin remains committed to upholding academic integrity while supporting students and institutions to maintain high standards.
What Are Limitations Of Turnitin?
Text-only matching limitation
Turnitin’s matching capabilities are limited to text-based content, excluding images from its analysis. This means that Turnitin’s system may not be able to detect any plagiarism contained in images or graphic elements in the document.
Inability to match restricted web pages
Turnitin cannot match students work with websites that require login or are not accessible by search engines. These restricted websites, which may contain related sources or academic content, are beyond the scope of Turnitin’s match ability.
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Delay in matching recent web updates
While Turnitin regularly checks websites for updates, there can be delays in matching very recent updates. This means that the most recent additional information or content on the web may not be immediately recognized and matched by Turnitin’s systems.
Limitation in matching textbooks
Unless the textbook is publicly available in digital format on the internet, Turnitin’s ability to match the content to the textbook is limited. This limits its effectiveness in identifying potential cases of plagiarism from textbook sources.
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PowerPoint and Poster submissions
Turnitin’s primary focus is text/content matching, which poses limitations when assessing PowerPoint or poster submissions. As these file formats may include visual elements, Turnitin’s text-based analysis cannot capture all the visual elements accurately, limiting its ability to provide comprehensive feedback on these submissions.
Conclusion
Hopefully, through the article above, you have answered the question ”Can Turnitin detect ChatGPT?’ The answer is yes !
Through trusted detection methods, Turnitin detector provides educators and institutions with an effective tool to ensure originality and maintain high standards of academic integrity in the face of public opinion and emerging technology such as ChatGPT.
FAQ
- Can I trick Turnitin?
No, it is not recommended to attempt to trick Turnitin as it has advanced algorithms designed to detect plagiarism and AI-generated content.
- How does Turnitin maintain the rate of less than 1% for documents?
Turnitin achieves this by continuously optimizing its detection model through rigorous testing and analysis. They strive to strike a balance between accurately identifying AI-generated content and minimizing the risk of false positives.
- Can Turnitin detect other AI language models apart from ChatGPT?
Yes, Turnitin's AI writing detection model is trained to detect content from various AI language models, not just ChatGPT. While it initially focused on GPT-3 and GPT-3.5, the model has been expanded to cover GPT-4 (including ChatGPT Plus) and is actively being developed to detect content from other AI language models.