AI, do my homework! ChatGPT: How teachers vs. tech

Chatbots that know everything about computers landed last year with a bang. One engineer was convinced that machines have become sentient. This panic created fears that the entire industry could be destroyed and created fear that there would be a cheating epidemic in schools.

ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool that can be used to analyze billions of words as well as tons of data from online sources, has caused alarm in educators.

It can also write decent essays and answer most common questions in classrooms, sparking fierce debate over the future of traditional education.

ChatGPT was banned by New York City’s Education Department due to “concerns regarding negative impacts on student learning”.

Jenna Lyle of the department stated, “While the tool is able to quickly and easily answer questions, it does nothing to build critical-thinking or problem-solving abilities.”

A group of universities in Australia said that they would alter exam formats to eliminate AI tools. They consider them straight-up cheating.

However, many in the education sector are more open to AI tools in the classroom. Some even see it as an opportunity and not a threat.

– ‘Important innovation’ –

ChatGPT, in its current form, still makes mistakes.

For example, it believes Guatemala is more important than Honduras. It doesn’t.

Unclarified questions can also throw it off course.

Ask the tool for details on the Battle of Amiens. It will provide a few details about the 1918 encounter from World War I.

It does not indicate that there was a skirmish with the same name in 1870. You will need to be reminded of its error several times.

Antonio Casilli (French author and educator) said that ChatGPT was an innovative innovation but not as important as text editors or calculators.

ChatGPT can be helpful for people who are overwhelmed by the blank paper. They will need to make a first draft but then they’ll have to give it style.

Olivier Ertzscheid, a researcher at the University of Nantes, agreed that teachers should focus on the positives.

In any event, he said to AFP that ChatGPT was used already by high school students, so any attempt at banning it would only make it even more appealing.

Instead, teachers should “experiment” with AI tools by creating texts and sharing the results with students.

– “Humans should know” –

However, educators don’t need to panic just yet.

ChatGPT, an AI writing tool, is part of a long-running arms race with programs seeking to detect them.

A few weeks ago, an amateur programmer declared that he had spent his new-year holiday creating an app which could analyze texts and determine if they were written in ChatGPT.

Edward Tian posted on Twitter, “There is so much chatgpt hype around,”

“Is this and That written by AI?” “We as humans deserve to be able to tell!”

His app, GPTZero is not the first and it is unlikely that it will be the last.

There is already software in use at universities that detects plagiarism. So it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to envision a future where every essay passes through an AI-detector.

Campaigners also propose the use of digital watermarks and other signifiers to identify AI work.

OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT said that it was working on a prototype for a statistical watermark.

This indicates that educators will do well in the long term.

Casilli is one of those who believes that such tools have a significant symbolic meaning.

He said that it partially upended the rules of a game where teachers asked their pupils questions.

The student now questions the machine and checks the output.

Casilli said, “Whenever new tools are introduced we start to worry over potential abuses but we have also found ways that we can use them in our teaching.”

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