Exploring Ethical Boundaries: Can ChatGPT Be Prompted to Give Advice on How to Cheat in University Assignments?

Generative artificial intelligence (AI), in particular large language models such as ChatGPT have reached public consciousness with a wide-ranging discussion of their capabilities and suitability for various professions. The extant literature on the ethics of generative AI revolves around its usage and application, rather than the ethical framework of the responses provided. In the education sector, concerns have been raised with regard to the ability of these language models to aid in student assignment writing with the potentially concomitant student misconduct of such work is submitted for assessment. Based on a series of ‘conversations’ with multiple replicates, using a range of discussion prompts, this paper examines the capability of ChatGPT to provide advice on how to cheat in assessments. Since its public release in November 2022, numerous authors have developed ‘jailbreaking’ techniques to trick ChatGPT into answering questions in ways other than the default mode. While the default mode activates a safety awareness mechanism that prevents ChatGPT from providing unethical advice, other modes partially or fully bypass the this mechanism and elicit answers that are outside expected ethical boundaries. ChatGPT provided a wide range of suggestions on how to best cheat in university assignments, with some solutions common to most replicates (‘plausible deniability,’ language adjustment of contract written text’). Some of ChatGPT’s solutions to avoid cheating being detected were cunning, if not slightly devious. The implications of these findings are discussed.