The hardest worker in academia today is ChatGPT. Over the last year, high school and college students turned in over 22 million papers that used some form of generative AI, according to data from Turnitin, which detects plagiarism and AI in schoolwork.

It’s been about a year and a half since generative AI tools like ChatGPT flooded the internet, and English departments were forced to add “bots” next to “SparkNotes” and “69 jokes” on the long list of things to look out for in personal essays. So, in response, Turnitin and other education companies created AI detection tools for teachers.

• Turnitin claims its detector has reviewed more than 200 million papers.
• Of those, 11% of papers may be 20% written by AI, while 3% of papers contain at least 80% AI-generated writing.

Educators are still hesitant to embrace AI detection

Experts say AI detection software isn’t as reliable as services that call out plagiarism—and false positives can harm a student’s academic career. The software itself may even contain bias about what it thinks is AI-written: A study last year found that seven AI-detecting tools had a 61% false positive rate when reviewing exams that test nonnative English speakers applying to colleges.

This study didn’t include Turnitin, which claims its false positives rate is around 1%. The company also stresses that its AI tool is not definitive.

Purdue University told instructors to be careful about accusing students of using AI with only Turnitin as proof, while other schools like Vanderbilt, Northwestern, and Montclair have told educators to stop using the AI detector entirely. The software itself has been described by administrators as a “black box” with no clear methodology for how it detects bot-written content.

Bottom line: AI regulation in the education system (like everywhere else) is a hodgepodge of vague rules that can’t quite keep up with how fast the technology is moving.—MM

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Arizona banned nearly all abortions. In a major ruling yesterday, the state’s Supreme Court revived a law from 1864 banning all abortions except when they’re necessary to save the mother’s life. The law, which also punishes providers with prison time, supersedes a previous state law that allowed abortions up to 15 weeks. The ruling makes Arizona’s abortion laws among the most restrictive in the US since SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago and paved the way for states to craft their own policies. Democrats and some Republicans immediately came out against the ruling.

Google’s getting serious about the chip wars. The tech giant announced that it’s making a new Arm-based CPU, called Axion, to buttress its AI work, joining Microsoft and Amazon in funding its own chips. The new chip will allow Google to reduce its dependency on chipmakers Intel and Nvidia, which could improve its position in the AI and cloud computing industries, The Verge reported. Axion already powers YouTube ads, but will now also power Google’s suite of cloud services. Google says that Axion performs 50% better than Intel’s processors.

The parents of a Michigan school shooter were sentenced to prison. James and Jennifer Crumbley were each sentenced to 10-to-15 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in the first time parents have ever been held directly responsible for their child’s attack. In 2021, their son, Ethan, murdered four students and injured seven others in a mass shooting at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit. Prosecutors alleged that James and Jennifer failed to secure the semiautomatic gun used in the shooting and ignored their son’s mental health red flags. On the day of the shooting, Jennifer allegedly texted Ethan, “Don’t do it.” James was also accused of threatening the prosecutor.

David Chang, the celebrity chef behind Momofuku who served Seth Rogen caviar on Pizza Hut, has found himself in the spotlight for a different questionable action. Chang’s Momofuku Goods sent cease-and-desist letters to seven companies marketing “Chili Crunch” sauces, saying it wants to minimize confusion with its own product by that name.

The rub: Momofuku doesn’t own the “Chili Crunch” trademark, though it began the application process in March. Last year, it bought the rights to “Chile Crunch” after being sued by the original trademark holder for using it.

Chili/chile crisp/crunch condiments are commonplace in many Asian cultures going back generations. No one holds a trademark for sriracha or ketchup, critics argue, and no one should own chili crunch. Additionally, many of the companies targeted by Chang’s conglomerate are smaller businesses with three employees or fewer and are run by fellow AAPI founders.

In response to the backlash, Momofuku said, “Our goal is and has been to find an amicable resolution—not to harm the competition that makes this category so vibrant.”

That’s hot: The global hot sauce category is worth $3+ billion.—HVL

Discovered: an “infinite” supply of energy. The renewable energy market is about to get real in 2024. Infinity Fuel Cell & Hydrogen, Inc. is inviting private investors to participate in their first capital raise. They’re pioneering hydrogen fuel cells that work underwater and in space—developed with $50m+ of previous contracts from NASA, the US Navy, and more. Become one of Infinity’s earliest shareholders while you can.

There are some NYC food joints where you can’t fist bump the cashier, even if you’re a regular. AI startup founder Brett Goldstein recently made a viral observation on X that the person taking his order at Japanese fried chicken restaurant Sansan Chicken was located on a different continent.

Cashiers at Sansan Chicken and locations of two sister chains in the New York City area work from home in the Philippines, interacting with diners via Zoom. They’re all employed by the company Happy Cashier, which enables restaurants to juice their bottom line by outsourcing labor abroad.

Controversial cost-cutting

The practice can be off-putting to customers: Canadian fast-casual chain Freshii was in hot water when it came out that its Nicaragua-based remote cashiers were reportedly making $3.75 an hour in 2022. But the arrangement might be a win-win for Sansa and the workers who greet the patrons from a screen:

• The Philippines-based employees could still be making more than the country’s median wage, Purdue University management professor Mohammad Rahman told Fortune.
• One remote Sansan employee told the New York Post that they receive tips, splitting them with service staff who work on the premises.

It’s not just eateries: A reply to Goldstein’s post claimed to show a remote security guard simultaneously staffing multiple buildings in Uruguay.—SK

Stat: A billion cicadas isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A trillion cicadas. You’ll soon find out just how cool, since that is about how many of the inch-long flying freaks will emerge from their underground hideouts in the Midwest and Southeast this May. If you were to line all those cicadas up, they would reach the moon and back 33 times, a Smithsonian bug expert told the New York Times. The reason for the comically large number of cicadas soon to torment your children is that two different broods are emerging at the same time, which hasn’t happened since 1803 and won’t happen again for another 221 years. On the bright side, cicadas don’t bite, sting, or carry diseases, so they are more annoying than dangerous.

Quote: “J.M. Smucker is a meritocracy, and my journey here took a lot of twists and turns.”

Mark Smucker, whose last name is the same as the company where he is CEO, wants everyone to know he had to earn his role just like everyone else. The food & bev exec told Fortune that the J.M. Smucker Company, founded in 1897 by his great-great-grandfather, has a rule that all family members must work outside the company before coming aboard. After graduating college in 1992, Mark Smucker held non-Smucker jobs for five years before joining Smucker in 1997, where he worked his way up to president of Smucker’s coffee division in 2011 and became CEO of Smucker in 2016.

Read: The story behind the inescapable “Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic!” jingle. (New York Times)