ChatGPT is an AI chatbot created by Anthropic to be helpful, harmless, and honest. It uses a transformer algorithm trained on millions of text conversations to identify patterns and relationships between words. While ChatGPT appears intelligent in its responses, it does not truly understand language and can be fooled. Several tools like GPT-ZERO exist to detect ChatGPT responses with high accuracy, but its answers can be modified to evade detection. The document recommends assignment designs that require skills beyond ChatGPT's abilities, like judgment, current events, group work, or multimedia submissions.