OpenAI Furthers Great Research
February 21, 2025
Unsatisfied with existing AI cheating solutions? If so, Gizmodo has good news for you: “OpenAI’s ‘Deep Research’ Gives Students a Whole New Way to Cheat on Papers.” Writer Kyle Barr explains:
“OpenAI’s new ‘Deep Research’ tool seems perfectly designed to help students fake their way through a term paper unless asked to cite sources that don’t include Wikipedia. OpenAI’s new feature, built on top of its upcoming o3 model and released on Sunday, resembles one Google introduced late last year with Gemini 2.0. Google’s ‘Deep Research’ is supposed to generate long-form reports over the course of 30 minutes or more, depending on the depth of the requested topic. Boiled down, Google’s and OpenAI’s tools are AI agents capable of performing multiple internet searches while reasoning about the next step to generate a report.”
Deep Research even functions in a side panel, providing updates on its direction and progress. So helpful! However, the tool is not for those looking to score an A. Like a student rushing to finish a paper the old-fashioned way, Barr notes, it relies heavily on Wikipedia. An example report did include a few trusted sites, like Pew Research, but such reliable sources were in the minority. Besides, the write-up emphasizes:
“Remember, this is just a bot scraping the internet, so it won’t be accessing any non-digitized books or—ostensibly—any content locked behind a paywall. … Because it’s essentially an auto-Googling machine, the AI likely won’t have access to the most up-to-date and large-scale surveys from major analysis firms. … That’s not to say the information was inaccurate, but anybody who generates a report is at the mercy of suspect data and the AI’s interpretation of that data.”
Meh, we suppose that is okay if one just needs a C to get by. But is it worth the $200 per month subscription? I suppose that depends on the student, and the parents willingness to sign up for services that will make gentle Ben and charming Chrissie smarter. Besides, we are sure more refined versions are in our future.
Cynthia Murrell, February 21, 2025
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