One in 5 teens who have heard of ChatGPT say they've used it for schoolwork, study finds

• A Pew Center study found that one in five teens who have heard of ChatGPT have used it for schoolwork.
• Teachers fear the huge popularity of the chatbot is fuelling a cheating epidemic.

ChatGPT's takeover of the classroom is not slowing down.

A new Pew research center survey of US teens aged between 13 and 17 has found that one in five students who have heard of the generative chatbot have used it to help with their schoolwork.

With around two-thirds of US teenagers having heard of ChatGPT, that is a lot of kids using OpenAI's chatbot to help write essays and solve math problems.

The findings will likely only add to concerns over the use of AI text-generators in schools. ChatGPT is so popular among students right now that its US traffic dropped by over 10% when schools finished for summer.

Its growing presence in classrooms has fuelled fears of a cheating epidemic, with another survey conducted earlier this year finding that one in four teachers say they have caught their students cheating using ChatGPT.

Some have sought to make their classes "ChatGPT-proof" by going back to handwritten essays and oral exams, with one teacher telling Business Insider they were planning on "going medieval" in an effort to thwart the chatbot.

The problem has been made worse by the fact that there is no easy way to detect when essays have been written by AI.

OpenAI itself has admitted that AI content detectors are too inaccurate to be reliable, and several universities have said they will stop using them after high-profile cases of students being falsely accused of cheating.

Despite this, OpenAI seems determined to get ChatGPT into the classroom. Earlier this month, the company's COO Brad Lightcap told a San Francisco conference that OpenAI was looking at establishing a team that would help educators incorporate ChatGPT into the curriculum, according to Reuters.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.