Alvina N. Kolesnichenko

The relevance of the study is stipulated by the need to examine the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in writing essays in a foreign language by participants in interuniversity competitions. Recently, authors have been abusing the use of neural networks when writing essays, which raises concerns about the role of this stage of the competition in identifying the creative potential of students. In this regard, the aim of the study is to identify the advantages and disadvantages of writing an essay as a competitive stage of the Olympiad in a foreign language and the advisability of holding it. The methods of analysis and synthesis, generalization and comparison served as the methodological basis of the study, which made it possible to present the theoretical foundations of the scientific work, as well as to make a comprehensive analysis of the results of such a stage of the competition as essay writing. The leading approach to the study of the problem should be considered the empirical approach, according to which the use of AI should be limited only to the sphere of processing and analysis of text data, but not an independent author's work. This study and its results confirm the proposed position. Analyzing the experience of holding an interuniversity competition in English at the Rostov State Transport University, the author comes to the conclusion that neural networks capable of producing text are universally available, but such generated work does not meet the requirements for competition participants, it does not express a personalized approach to doing the assignment, which becomes obvious when checking such works, including a comprehensive text borrowing detection system using AI. The scientific study confirms the advisability of holding a competitive test at the interuniversity Olympiad in the form of writing an essay in a foreign language, since this type of written work has a number of advantages: it reveals the creative abilities of students, indicates the degree of formation of foreign language competence and critical thinking, as well as the professional competence of the participants in general. The theoretical significance of the study lies in further studying the issue of the possibilities of using AI in teaching a foreign language. The practical significance of the work is determined by the results of the study, the experience of holding an interuniversity Olympiad in English, which can be used by teachers of technical universities.