That's an over simplification. If students are using chatgpt to generate code that they themselves don't understand, and then submitting that whole cloth as their work, they're cheating - full stop. They're not using chatgpt as a tool in this case, any more than searching stack overflow and copying answers without understanding them is a tool.

The calculator comparison is interesting - calculators can't be wrong. And if they can be, we're kind of screwed. Like NASA screwed when someone mixed up imperial and metric measurements. ChatGPT can and will be wrong because it doesn't actually know what its giving back to you. Until its code can be 100% correct, which I don't think is possible, it cannot be used as a simple tool that any one can use to generate code without actually knowing how the code it generates works.

So yes - ultimately these students are cheating. Maybe it feels to them like they've just found a shortcut to being a developer, they haven't.