A 22-year-old Toronto student, Edward Tian, has created an application that can determine whether a text was written by a human or a bot.
The initiative comes in response to the popularity of ChatGPT a free software based on artificial intelligence that can interact expeditiously like a search engine and write about anything.
It has piqued the interest of Microsoft but has been met with alarm by schools and universities in the US who fear plagiarism from students, copyright creators and security researchers who think it could be used to write malicious viruses.
Tian, a senior year at Princeton University, said GPTZero is based on analyzing language variability and is the first step in addressing a number of concerns that could arise as AI becomes more easily accessible.
"This technology will get better and better, artificial intelligence is here to stay. This is the future," the student told the BBC.
The app analyzes, for example whether a text contains short or long sentences or whether the writing appears uniform.
In a tweet, Tian demonstrated how the app can successfully tell the difference between an essay published in the New Yorker magazine and a letter written by ChatGPT.
The popularity of ChatGPT has grown a lot in recent weeks, generating debates among experts and users who have tried it so much that even Microsoft has set its sights on Open AI, the non-profit company that created it in order to enhance its search and possibly compete with Google.