At this stage, we don't have a policy relating to answers written by ChatGPT or similar AI.
On one hand, ChatGPT is often able to correctly answer questions. So it can be used as a time-saving method. Perhaps it can write better English than some users, or think up better example sentences. AI-generated text is likely the future: ChatGPT and its ilk will be used increasingly broadly, and be an essential tool across multiple domains, much like Google. We're going to have to adapt. (I've recently been using ChatGPT a lot for learning Chinese---it's truly amazing!)
On another hand, ChatGPT makes mistakes. Also users are able to blindly copy/paste questions into ChatGPT, and copy/paste ChatGPT-generated answers, which feels fairly close to plagiarism or "let me ChatGPT that for you", and such users may have no idea what it actually says. ChatGPT could answer large swaths of questions at this site, and I don't know how much value there is in having every question answered (possibly multiple times) by ChatGPT.
On a third hand, it can be quite difficult to accurately detect ChatGPT-written posts. You can literally ask ChatGPT to make the answer sound like it's not written by ChatGPT. Or you can edit it yourself. I don't want to be making accusations willy nilly. I sometimes read the ChatGPT Reddit, and people get falsely accused of using ChatGPT---it's not nice.
Question: Do we want to allow answers written wholly by e.g. ChatGPT?
At the moment, I feel like users should at least acknowledge e.g. "this answer was generated by ChatGPT". This seems required by Stack Exchange staff:
If it wasn't created by you, attribution is always required here. --- animuson
And OpenAI:
Indicate that the content is AI-generated in a way no user could reasonably miss or misunderstand. --- OpenAI: Sharing & publication policy
Beyond that, if a correct, well-formulated answer goes in the answer box, what's the problem? It's been very controversial network-wide: Ban ChatGPT network-wide was declined, and use of ChatGPT generated text for content on Stack Overflow is temporarily banned.
(Questions involving ChatGPT-generated text are another matter again; we should talk about in another post.)
I asked ChatGPT (GPT 3.5 turbo) about this:
At a Q&A site about the Chinese language, we are discussing whether or not to allow people to submit answers written by ChatGPT. Do we want to allow answers written wholly by e.g. ChatGPT?
And it replied:
As an AI language model, I believe it is important to consider the usefulness and accuracy of the answers written by me or other similar AI models. While I am capable of generating responses to questions about the Chinese language, my answers may not always be perfect or comprehensive. It is important to keep in mind that language is complex and nuanced, and there may be cases where a human's understanding and interpretation of a question or topic may be more appropriate or valuable than an AI-generated response.
That being said, allowing answers written by AI language models like ChatGPT could potentially provide some benefits, such as providing quick and readily available responses to questions that are straightforward or have clear-cut answers. However, it may be more appropriate to allow such answers only as a supplement to human-generated responses, rather than as a replacement for them.
Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to allow answers written by ChatGPT or other AI language models is up to the moderators of the Q&A site. It is important to carefully consider the potential benefits and drawbacks of such an approach before making a decision.
