A Florida high school known for having a prestigious academic program told parents that students have been cheating on essays using ChatGPT.

According to an email sent to parents by the program coordinator, students in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at Cape Coral High School are allegedly using the AI chat software to generate essays. School district and IB program officials condemned the use of software, but students say the software is already commonplace.

“Your senior students are in the process of submitting rough and final drafts of their official IB internal assessments in their various subject areas,” Cape Coral IB program coordinator Katelyn A. Uhler wrote in the letter. “Recently the use of AI generators has become a major concern. The use of AI generators is a violation of our academic integrity policy… There have been some IB papers submitted that are questionable in a few ways including being very different styles of writing from previously submitted papers. I have been going into the senior Theory of Knowledge classes with CCHS administration to address this concern and outline the consequences.”

The school uses an automated software called Turnitin to check for plagiarism on their papers. But Uhler pointed out that AI-generated papers can get around this because they do not generate the same output twice. Instead, the school is using AI detectors and investigating individual students’ laptops to verify their work.

Uhler said she asked students to approach her in private to correct the issue quickly; if not, students could incur more severe consequences. IB teachers need to authenticate all student work in order to complete the program, and IB students need to complete the program in order to earn their high school diploma.

Uhler urged parents to talk to their children at home about the consequences of using AI-generated work.

Officials with both the School District of Lee County and the International Baccalaureate program condemned the use of AI to create work. “As part of our ongoing cybersecurity efforts, our Information Services team continues to strengthen Chromebook security features to block the use of AI from aiding any student work,” the district told local news outlet NBC2.

“The use of ChatGPT and any other method which results in a student submitting work that is not their own is against the IB’s academic integrity policy,” the IB added.

But students at the school told the outlet that they are well aware of ChatGPT.

“I’ve heard a lot about it,” said student Sophia Fallacara. “Like, all of the seniors, they’re all talking about it.”

“There’s like a whole controversy about it,” added student Michael Clayton.

In December, a professor at Furman University warned that AI is the future of plagiarism. “Today, I turned in the first plagiarist I’ve caught using A.I. software to write her work, and I thought some people might be curious about the details,” philosophy professor Darren Hick wrote on Facebook, pointing out ChatGPT specifically.

“Administrations are going to have to develop standards for dealing with these kinds of cases, and they’re going to have to do it FAST,” Hick added. “This is too new. But it’s going to catch on. It would have taken my student about 5 minutes to write this essay using ChatGPT. Expect a flood, people, not a trickle.”

An op-ed article in The New York Times has expressed support for J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender issues, following the publication of two open letters on Wednesday alleging the paper’s past coverage of child sex changes was biased against transgender people.

The New York Times published an op-ed titled “In Defense of J.K. Rowling” by columnist Pamela Paul one day after nearly 200 of the newspaper’s contributors signed a joint letter accusing The New York Times of “anti-trans bias” and aligning their views with “far-right hate groups,” which was followed by a second letter led by LGBT advocacy group GLAAD and signed by activists and public figures.

“Our journalism strives to explore, interrogate and reflect the experiences, ideas and debates in society — to help readers understand them. Our reporting did exactly that and we’re proud of it,” said Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for the Times, adding that on the subject of transgender issues, the consideration that went into their reporting was done “deeply and empathetically.”

The New York Times has found itself embroiled in a heated debate on transgender issues after publishing articles in recent months that attempted to take a fair and balanced approach on the subject of pediatric social and medical transition.

Backlash from the reporting culminated in two open letters that were published on Wednesday, one from 200 New York Times staff and contributors to Philip B. Corbett, associate managing editor for standards at the Times, and the other from GLAAD, an LGBT advocacy organization, signed by celebrities and activists.

The first letter accused the paper of “editorial bias” in its reporting on “transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people,” while the second letter accused the NYT of “irresponsible, biased coverage of transgender people.” The signatories of the GLAAD letter include several campaign groups, along with celebrities including Jameela Jamil, Lena Dunham, Gabrielle Union, Judd Apatow, and Tommy Dorfman.

A few of the “problematic” articles the letters mentioned were Emily Bazelon’s “The Battle Over Gender Therapy,” “When Students Change Gender Identity and Parents Don’t Know” by Katie Baker, and “How to Make Sense of the New L.G.B.T.Q. Culture War” by Ross Douthat.

The publication of the pro-Rowling article indicates that The New York Times is still willing to share a range of opinions on the debate, despite criticism. In her op-ed, Paul argued that the abuse faced by the author of the “Harry Potter” series is unfounded and that her statements do not qualify as transphobic. She denounced Rowling’s detractors as a “noisy fringe of the internet and a number of powerful transgender rights activists and L.G.B.T.Q. lobbying groups.”

Paul argues that Rowling is not disputing the existence of gender dysphoria and has never voiced opposition to allowing adults to transition under evidence-based medical care, but her defense of biological women’s spaces, skepticism of self-declared “gender identity,” and support for detransitioners and feminist scholars have been interpreted by some as “transphobic.”

Paul references the new podcast, “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling,” set to launch next week by Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church, which includes nine hours of interviews with Rowling that explore her views and the backlash faced by the author.

Paul argues that those who accuse Rowling of punching down against her critics ignore the fact that she is sticking up for those who have silenced themselves to avoid job loss, public vilification, and threats to physical safety that other critics of recent gender orthodoxies have suffered.

“The pushback is often, ‘You are wealthy. You can afford security. You haven’t been silenced.’ All true. But I think that misses the point,” Rowling says in the podcast. “The attempt to intimidate and silence me is meant to serve as a warning to other women” with similar views who might want to have their opinions heard.