Tag Archives: chatGPT

window – chatgpt 

This poem was written by ChatGPT with the provided prompt:
"Write a poem about a window"

A window, a portal to another world

A gateway to beauty, yet to unfold

It frames a picture, a moment in time

A place to sit, and watch life unwind

 

The glass is cold, to the touch

But it warms with the sun’s gentle clutch

A reflection of all that surrounds

The skies, the trees, the sights and sounds

 

Through the window, we see a view

A world that is both old and new

The hustle and bustle of daily life

Or the peaceful calmness of the night

 

In the morning, the light streams in

As a new day is about to begin

And in the evening, it casts a glow

As the world outside starts to slow

 

A window is a lens to the soul

A glimpse of life, beyond our control

It reminds us of what’s outside our door

And inspires us to explore even more

 

So open the window, let in the air

Feel the breeze, let down your hair

For a window is more than just a pane

It’s a reminder of life’s beauty, once again.

This poem was written by ChatGPT with the provided prompt:
"Write a poem about a window that doesn't rhyme"
A window stands before my eyes
Its pane of glass a clear disguise
For on the other side I see
A world that’s waiting just for me

Through it comes the light of day

And nighttime shadows dance and play

It shows me rain and summer sun

And all the beauty yet undone

 

Sometimes I’ll stand and watch awhile

At people passing with a smile

Or gaze into the starry night

And feel as though I’m taking flight

 

But though it seems just like a screen

This window is more than it seems

For in it I can see a dream

And all the hope that it can bring

 

So though it doesn’t rhyme or sing

This window is a wondrous thing

A gateway to the world beyond

And all the stories yet unwritten and untold.

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Nobody Likes A Copycat

Process Post #8

A painting of a lightbulb hangs on the wall. A man copies that painting. A woman copies what the man is painting. Another man copies what the woman is painting.
Reputation Today

One of the things I dislike about my website so far is its lack of visual content. Some of my categories are extremely text heavy, and it gets exhausting to look at. However, I have been hesitant to add photos to my site because I am unsure about copyright laws and I am not looking for a lawsuit! But, with advancements in AI, I there is a chance I avoid this issue altogether.

According to a recent Forbes article, AI images aren’t protectable under copyright law (Novak, 2023). I took this to mean that since the AI is the “intellectual mastermind” behind the photos, you could use them without repercussions. However, I still wouldn’t try to pass off AI work as my own. I would make it clear that I was not the creator, similar to how I presented a recent post using ChatGPT. I ensured there was a clear distinction between what I wrote and what AI wrote. I said things like “Here is what ChatGPT produced” and titled that work “ChatGPT’s biggest pop-culture moment of 2021” (Click here to check it out!) to avoid confusion.

I hoped an AI image generator, called DALL-E, could create images for my website. I works by using a “text input bar where you can type (almost) anything your heart desires” (Antonelli, 2023) and creating an image based of your prompt. While the newest version of DALL-E has made some advancements, in the sense that it allows you to edit pre-existing images (Antonelli, 2023) it still has some limitations. For example, It could produce random things like “an oil painting of a unicorn” but as soon as I asked for “a photo of Taylor Swift on tour” to compliment a recent post, it said it was a violation of their guidelines. I think this is because, to the best of my understanding, the AI creates images by practicing with others that already exist online and were created by humans. So, with images of real people, the photographs they use as references are protected by copyright. That’s my guess, and it could be way off, but either way DALL-E couldn’t help me. But it’s a least fun to play around with. Click here to test out DALL-E yourself!

Another reason DALL-E couldn’t help me was because I often don’t know what I am looking for until I find it. With this AI you have to type in a prompt, and then it generates images. But other than photos of people, which it couldn’t provide, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. That’s why I prefer to search up keywords online, see what comes up and make adjustments. I don’t go into it already knowing what I want, which made using the AI difficult.

So, I resorted to using online photos. To avoid violating copyright, I made sure to caption the photos with the photographer and online source I retrieved the photo from. However, I noticed that a lot of sites didn’t include proper credits. There was no information about where photos were coming from. to combat this issue, rather than crediting to original creator I credited the website I got the image from. I did try find the owners, but in a lot of cases I had no luck.

Although my other content is all created by me, after learning more about copyright from our readings, I may have committed some violations. For example,  I learned that “while facts cannot be copyrighted, compilations of facts generally can be” (Henein, 2015). This makes me wonder if some of my written posts could be considered compilations of facts. The “facts” being what I’ve seen on social media. However, I think I added enough of my opinion into what I gathered that my posts would be considered original works. But, I think my Reality TV Remix assignment (Click here to watch it) is definitely a violation of copyright. I just compiled and edited clips that are owned by TV companies and producers. Oops. Hopefully I am not forced to take it down, and in the future I’ll avoid doing this.

Works Cited

Antonelli, W. (2023, March 20). How to use dall·e 2 and Craiyon, the AI art tools that can generate images from any text prompt. Business Insider. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/dall-e-mini

Henein, P. (2015, October 29). You say tomaydo , I say no copyright infringement: Recipe book not an original compilation – copyright – canada. You Say Tomaydo, I Say No Copyright Infringement: Recipe Book Not An Original Compilation – Copyright – Canada. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://www.mondaq.com/canada/copyright/439012/you-say-tomaydo-i-say-no-copyright-infringement-recipe-book-not-an-original-compilation

Novak, M. (2023, February 24). AI-created images aren’t protected by copyright law according to U.S. Copyright Office. Forbes. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/02/22/ai-created-images-in-new-comic-book-arent-protected-by-copyright-law-according-to-us-copyright-office/?sh=5d8ba9497ce4

Artificial Intelligence

AI is on a rapid rise in education. Professors and educators have been banning new softwares like ChatGPT and Dall-E with the fear that students will use them to plagiarize entire assignments and diminish critical thinking. However, the use of these technologies is inevitable and increasing in various everyday circumstances. As educational institutions continue banning them, they will just get more and more advanced, which means that at some point, we’ll all have to cope with them somehow. So this week, I tried out two of these technologies: ChatGPT and Dall-E, and found a few ways students might positively use it in the classroom.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI software developed by OpenAI that is meant to generate almost-immediate, conversational responses to questions, prompts, and commands. It launched to the public in November 2022, and since then has been a topic of discourse in academia, ethics and technology, and general interest of the common person with free time and internet connection. Its impressive technology allows the responses to be detailed, articulate, and generally factually correct. User input also helps craft desired outputs, as the AI can “learn” and tailor its responses to reflect feedback and critiques. As mentioned, ChatGPT has faced rejection from educators and institutions with its negative implications for students, but there are ways that ChatGPT can be effectively implemented to aid learning and expression.

Idea Generation

Writer’s block is pretty inevitable for any class, especially PUB 101, where I write two or three posts a week. With a simple prompt, ChatGPT can generate ideas to take inspiration from for essays, assignments, and blog posts. This could yield excellent results, as each student would be able to spend more time on the execution of their project, rather than spending time brainstorming ideas that are often too simple to accurately and rigorously demonstrate their learning. To bypass the possible concern that this would limit creative thinking and be a case of plagiarism, I must clarify that in fleshing out projects from a mere concept to execution still requires a lot of creative thinking, and by referencing the software’s assistance it would steer clear of plagiarism claims since the ideas would in a sense still be the student’s own based on the prompt and information fed. 

Keyword Generation

In PUB 101, I’ve learned that inputting keywords in posts is extremely important. They help improve the SEO and my website’s reach. ChatGPT could effectively help generate some of these keywords to benefit each post on my blog. So, I decided to type the following into ChatGPT: what are some keywords to include in a blog post about reviewing Taylor Swift’s album “folklore”? Here’s what it generated.

A ChatGPT response to the prompt "what are some keywords to include in a blog post about reviewing Taylor Swift’s album “folklore”?"

What is Dall-E?

Dall-E is an AI software, also developed by OpenAI, that generates complex creative images from text prompts. Prompts can include things like recreating individual artists’ styles, using various art mediums, and ultimately absurd visuals that one would not expect to see in one image. Like ChatGPT, the use of Dall-E has been a controversial topic. Specifically, when is it ethically permissible to use it, especially in academic contexts? 

Creating Visual Interest

My content posts often use a lot of images from the internet. While this is useful in many cases, especially for posts that take on a more editorial-style, I think that adding pictures created from DALL-E could enhance the personalization of my posts. It could make the blog reflect me and my own personality instead of always relying on other people’s pictures and using generic-looking stock photos. For example, my post about crocheting could have included Dall-E pictures to create added entertainment, visual interest, and personality.

Oil painting of girl crocheting.
Dall-E generated image using the prompt “an oil painting of a girl learning how to crochet”.

Citing and Copyright?

Since ChatGPT is such a novel tool, traditional citation styles have yet to cohesively come up with solutions for ways students should properly credit the use of the technology in their work. However, as a student and a blog-owner, citing your sources is a critical step in ethical academia and success. Suggestions have been made for citation style from APA, for example, an online library guide for a university suggests, “This technology is new and we are all learning about generative AI resources and how to ethically use them. Consider making the ChatGPT conversation retrievable by including the text as an appendix or as online supplemental material.”

But then again, would we even need to credit the model if it’s not really taking from other people’s ideas? If things are written by ChatGPT, who owns the copyright? The human who generated the prompt, or the creators of the model? Only time will tell.

References:

Antonelli, W. (n.d.). How to use dall·e 2 and Craiyon, the AI art tools that can generate images from any text prompt. Business Insider. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/dall-e-mini

Dall·E: Creating images from text. DALL·E: Creating images from text. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://openai.com/research/dall-e

Introducing chatgpt. Introducing ChatGPT. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

Johnson, A. (2023, January 31). Chatgpt in schools: Here’s where it’s banned-and how it could potentially help students. Forbes. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/01/18/chatgpt-in-schools-heres-where-its-banned-and-how-it-could-potentially-help-students/?sh=130da4506e2c

Research guides: APA style 7th edition: Chatgpt & ai tools. Humber. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://guelphhumber.libguides.com/c.php?g=716556&p=5279441

The Rise of ChatGPT in Academia and How We Should Navigate It

Over time, artificial intelligence tools have been steadily developing and emerging into people’s lives. Now, many of them are now easily accessible to anyone with a decent wifi connection. While this seems like a feat of innovation for engineers, scientists, and technology as a whole, the implementation of AI in academia has raised concerns that could cause some to think otherwise. For example, ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that aims to generate immediate conversational-style responses to prompts– including but not limited to prompts regarding questions, text-translations, and summarization (Cotton et al., 2023). The software launched in November 2022, and has since seen growing popularity in the classroom, forcing both students and educators to reconceive traditional ideas of learning standards that have been complicated by ChatGPT. While ethical controversies have proliferated surrounding ChatGPT in academia, alternate suggestions for how to best take advantage of AI resources have naturally arisen as well. In this essay, I will address common concerns about students using ChatGPT, and offer suggestions for how to appropriately use it in consideration of both the challenges and benefits it provides. 

Concerns About ChatGPT

With ChatGPT being banned in schools across the world, it is evident that educators are worried about what students will be capable of with access to the chatbot. According to a qualitative study that evaluated the relevance, accuracy, originality, depth, and additional factors of ChatGPT’s responses to various prompts, it was well supported that it could easily assist students in cheating on assessments and exams (Susnjak, 2022). This impressive proficiency demonstrated in the AI’s output seems to have incited a widely-shared concern about its implications for academic integrity. For instance, as researchers describe, the ease of plagiarism with the use of ChatGPT seems to undermine the need for higher education (Cotton et al., 2023). As students can quickly complete assignments with a simple software, the focus on rigorous research and writing at post-secondary institutions seems to lose its worth, since much of the work can easily be written by ChatGPT– sometimes to a higher quality than students are capable of. Furthermore, ChatGPT can ultimately contribute to the loss of creativity and critical thinking, due to the fact that one can have their work completed for them, rather than needing to rationalize and create solutions themselves. This will lead to future failures, as it will prevent students from properly developing their researching and writing skills, and fields of study will be flooded with work that the software itself warns might include incorrect and biased information that is limited to a certain date or framework (OpenAI, 2023). Additionally, as students continue to use ChatGPT, it will inevitably create inequities in assessments (Cotton et al., 2023). This is due to the fact that some students will be making honest attempts at completing assignments, using their own background knowledge, experiences, research, and skills to conceive of their solutions, while other students will be turning to technology’s efforts, resulting in students earning higher or lower grades than they potentially deserved. Those who attempted to use their skills themselves will be at a disadvantage, putting in far greater effort than their ChatGPT-using counterparts. Ultimately, these concerns surrounding ChatGPT may lead to the “devaluation of degrees” (Cotton et al, 2023), due to the aforementioned impacts on post-secondary education. 

Benefits of ChatGPT

While these concerns thoroughly explain why many feel hesitant to accept (or outright reject) ChatGPT as a resource in academia, this does not mean that there are no conceivable benefits and opportunities that ChatGPT can provide to both students and educators. One benefit is found in its text translation feature (Lund & Wang, 2023). This aspect can aid individuals in language learning, since multiple studies have found it to be quite accurate, including Susnjak’s. This will help those attempting to navigate environments in which they are unfamiliar with the language, contributing to the expansion of global boundaries. Furthermore, ChatGPT functions to increase efficiency in research and literature review. This is done because it can extract, summarize, and analyze large data sets, faster than the time it would take for human individuals to do so (Lund & Wang, 2023). This aspect allows for the software to selectively synthesize documents within entire fields of study, greatly accelerating the pace at which potential advancements can be made and referenced. In addition, educators who have been using ChatGPT as a learning assistant in their classes have found that it has helped their students gain deeper understandings of the materials, and that it offers them a way to restructure and clarify their own ideas with the assistance of an external source (Roose, 2023). This gives them a foundation to be able to create their own work, and demonstrate their knowledge in richer ways. As explained, ChatGPT provides many benefits when being used as a tool to further education, rather than a direct source for plagiarism.  

Suggestions for ChatGPT

As described in this paper, the concerns regarding ChatGPT can be prevalent enough to outweigh the potential benefits, leading to the enforcement of restrictions on the use of ChatGPT in academic environments. Nonetheless, studies have shown that there are indeed ways to use ChatGPT in effective and educational ways while being mindful of the potential for plagiarism and unsavoury consequences. Warner (2023) emphasizes that “learning is rooted in experiences”, and it seems likely that ChatGPT can be used to enhance experience rather than replace it, as these concerns have suggested. When utilizing ChatGPT as a resource to deepen learning and provide different approaches to understanding, it allows for students to take advantage of such an innovative technology without sacrificing the authenticity of their work and the purpose of their education.

Additionally, as technology continues to advance, avoiding the use of these revolutionary resources would be unwise, since AI will only continue to progress and implement itself in various ways in people’s everyday lives. Choosing to altogether deny younger generations the use of ChatGPT and other AI tools like it would be to ineffectively counteract the natural progression of innovation and technology. While it is important to use AI appropriately– for example, in ways I have previously suggested– it is not productive nor realistic to discount AI on account of its possible misuses. 

With ChatGPT only beginning to establish its place in academia, this type of discourse regarding its upsides, downsides, and appropriate usages is important to have if there is hope for AI to be effectively used by scholars. Given what we have seen from AI thus far and the outstretched path of technological advancements, it seems we have good reason to remain hopeful. Despite the challenges it brings to academic integrity and education, the benefits of using ChatGPT to assist and elevate research and work should encourage people to use it wisely, rather than not at all.

References:

Cotton, D. R. E., Cotton, P. A., & Shipway, J. R. (2023). Chatting and cheating: Ensuring academic integrity in the era of ChatGPT, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2023.2190148

Introducing ChatGPT. Introducing ChatGPT. (2023). Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt 

Johnson, A. (2023). ChatGPT in Schools: Here’s Where It’s Banned-And How It Could Potentially Help Students. Forbes. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/01/18/chatgpt-in-schools-heres-where-its-banned-and-how-it-could-potentially-help-students/?sh=667ae6bd6e2c 

Lund, B. D., & Wang, T. (2023). Chatting about ChatGPT: how may AI and GPT impact academia and libraries?, Library Hi Tech News, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-01-2023-0009

Roose, K. (2023). Don’t Ban ChatGPT in Schools. Teach With It. The New York Times. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/technology/chatgpt-schools-teachers.html 

Susnjak, T. (2022). ChatGPT: The End of Online Exam Integrity? arXiv Forum, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2212.09292

Warner, J. (2023) How About We Put Learning at the Center?: Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/how-about-we-put-learning-center

Photo:

Poth, R. D. (2019, September 3). Artificial Intelligence: Preparing students for the future with ai. Getting Smart. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.gettingsmart.com/2019/09/03/artificial-intelligence-preparing-students-for-the-future-with-ai/

The Effective Implementation of ChatGPT in PUB 101 at Simon Fraser University

            A chatbot with the capability of writing personalized essays and assignments is a never-seen-before feat that is changing the world of academia. ChatGPT, conceived by OpenAI is a chatbot that is trained using large amounts of data to conduct human-like conversations, compose essays, summarize information, and much more (Ortiz, 2023; Sundar, 2023). With the rise of the use of ChatGPT in the classroom, educators have expressed several concerns involving plagiarism, bias, and the loss of critical thinking. However, in the attempts to ban the use of the model in higher education, critics ignore the several ways it can benefit the classroom setting. Through a mutual understanding between professors, students, and teaching assistants (TAs) surrounding ChatGPT’s affordances and limitations, the platform can successfully enhance learning in PUB 101: Publication of Self in Everyday Life at Simon Fraser University (SFU). In this essay, I argue that there are three main roles in the publishing course: the professor, teaching assistant, and student, who can all use the chatbot in different ways to facilitate learning, while remaining cognizant of its downfalls.

Laying the Groundwork: Professors

            Professors hold the responsibility of educating students about the implications of the use of ChatGPT while creating an open space for discourse surrounding the model’s role in the classroom. The use of ChatGPT is becoming increasingly inevitable and therefore, I argue that instructors must create open conversation surrounding the tool instead of banning it, which will prove to be ineffective. Instead, like any other technology, instructors must help students build technological literacy surrounding its use, which is defined as the ability to “use, manage, evaluate, and understand technology” (ITEA, 2007, p. 7). A method for building technological literacy could include devoting a class to the study of artificial intelligence, allowing students to share their knowledge and suggest guidelines on the use of the model. This optimizes transparency and fairness, allowing students to become advocates for their learning. In the class, professors should discuss the importance of fact-checking due to misinformation, explaining to students that the model is only as good as the data it was trained on (Mhlanga, 2023). Students should also understand that ChatGPT cannot register context nor perform common sense and logical tasks (Lund & Wang, 2023). Using this information, they would understand that, for example, it would be a poor decision to ask the model to write the term essay for them, because it does not understand the professor’s specific instructions. Professors should additionally ensure that students are aware of the privacy and security implications related to the model, including the fact that it can retain highly sensitive information from users’ prompts, including financial and medical data (Mhlanga, 2023). Other implications involve the potential bias in the system and the overarching question of plagiarism, which will be discussed in the following section.

Possibilities: Students and Teaching Assistants

            Students can use ChatGPT to generate ideas or outlines for their blog posts while remaining cognizant of SFU’s guidelines on academic integrity and plagiarism. In PUB 101, a course based on blogging, students publish an average of two to three blog posts each week, including “process posts” which detail their weekly blog maintenance, “content posts” related to their blog themes, “peer reviews,” and “mini assignments.” Therefore, in alignment with Qadir’s (2022) propositions for the uses of ChatGPT, I argue that the predominant purpose of the model in this course is for idea generation or the creation of outlines for blog posts. This can help alleviate the time and stress students endure while conceiving their posts. However, Qadir, with the help of ChatGPT explains that there is a difference between acceptable use and plagiarism, which is a significant concern regarding the use of the model in the classroom. Therefore, an exploration of SFU’s academic integrity policy is required here to understand how it might be used ethically. The central tenets explain that students must present honest and fair work, among several other aspects (SFU, 2018). These tenets demonstrate that it is crucial they are transparent with the use of the model by citing or crediting it, even if they simply use it to generate ideas (Qadir, 2022). They should not use the model to write entire paragraphs, blog posts, or even essays, as this would constitute “falsification, misrepresentation… [and] deception” (SFU, 2018) because they are representing a chatbot’s output as their own work.

            ChatGPT offers teaching assistants the opportunity of providing personalized feedback to students, but they must remain aware of the potential biases of the model. Mhlanga (2023) explains that feedback from ChatGPT allows students’ classroom experiences to become more “productive and personalized” (p. 8). There are 59 students and one TA in the Spring 2023 offering of PUB 101, and with students creating an average of two to three weekly blog posts, it becomes nearly impossible for the TA to provide consistent feedback to 118 to 177 blog posts each week. TAs can employ ChatGPT to regularly provide personalized feedback for students on certain writing elements they wish to emphasize, including layout, content, and grammar, which, as Mhlanga describes, simulates hands-on learning. For example, I prompted ChatGPT with the following: “provide feedback on the layout of this blog post,” and proceeded to enter my post, “Piping Hot Take: The Royal Family Needs to Apologize for Racism,” to which ChatGPT responded:

The layout of this blog post is simple and easy to read, with a clear title and an engaging opening sentence. The author provides a brief disclaimer to clarify that the post reflects their opinion. The use of subheadings helps to break up the text and guide the reader through the post. The inclusion of images to illustrate the content adds visual interest and helps to convey the author’s point. Overall, the layout is effective in presenting the author’s argument in a clear and concise manner.

(ChatGPT, personal communication, March 10, 2023)

            Despite the opportunities for ChatGPT to offer effective personalized feedback, TAs must recognize that the output could contain biases due to its training data (Lund & Wang, 2023). These biases could pose problems when students’ positionalities are reflected in their writing, including race, gender, or socioeconomic status, which can perpetuate existing societal prejudices (Mhlanga, 2023). Because of these potential biases, PUB 101 TAs cannot use the feedback provided on ChatGPT to generate final marks. Instead, Cotton et al. (2023) suggest that TAs employ a combination of artificial intelligence and manual assessment tools to ensure that students’ understanding of the material and their blog posts are assessed appropriately. ChatGPT could generate regular feedback, supplementing the TA’s formal feedback offered twice a semester, culminating in the final grades, assessed manually by the TA.

Conclusion

            The successful implementation of ChatGPT in PUB 101 requires professors, students, and TAs to uphold certain responsibilities. Professors must foster technological literacy in the classroom by teaching students about ChatGPT’s affordances and limitations, showing them when it is appropriate to use the chatbot. After building this foundation, students can use the model to generate ideas and outlines, while remaining aware of SFU’s academic integrity policy. Additionally, TAs can use ChatGPT to provide personalized feedback for students as long as they do not rely on the model to provide grades, due to potential biases in the data. With ChatGPT-literate professors, students, and TAs, the model has the potential to revolutionize learning in PUB 101, becoming a leader in AI-assisted education at SFU.

References

Cotton, D. R. E., Cotton, P. A., & Shipway, J. R. (2023). Chatting and cheating: Ensuring academic integrity in the era of ChatGPT. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2023.2190148

International Technology Education Association. (2007). Standards for technological literacy: Content for the study of technology (3rd ed.). International Technology Education Association.

Lund, B. D., & Wang, T. (2023). Chatting about ChatGPT: How may AI and GPT impact academia and libraries?. Library Hi Tech News, 16(3), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-01-2023-0009

Mhlanga, D. (2023). Open AI in education, the responsible and ethical use of ChatGPT towards lifelong learning. SSRN Electronic Journal, 1-19. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4354422

Ortiz, S. (2023, March 10). What is ChatGPT and why does it matter? Here’s everything you need to know. ZDNET. https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-chatgpt-and-why-does-it-matter-heres-everything-you-need-to-know/

Qadir, J. (2022). Engineering education in the era of ChatGPT: Promise and pitfalls of generative AI for education. TechRxiv, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.36227/techrxiv.21789434.v1

Simon Fraser University. (2018, November 22). Student academic integrity policy. https://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html

Sundar, S. (2023, March 1). If you still aren’t sure what ChatGPT is, this is your guide to the viral chatbot that everyone is talking about. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-chat-gpt-2023-1

ChatGPT and the classroom: Are you in or are you out?

It’s March 2023—almost a full three months into the year—and it seems like every academic and student (and their dog) has brought up artificial intelligence (AI) in their conversations and discussions. Whether it be in the form of chatbots, facial recognition, or smart assistants, artificial intelligence, or AI, has formed a strong presence in today’s world.

While AI is such a popular topic of conversation, it is not always for the best reasons. With newer inventions like ChatGPT, universities have become weary of the use of AI in the classroom. Some schools in the US have even banned the use of ChatGPT by students for fears of cheating and the spread of misinformation—something to discuss shortly (Rosenblatt, 2023). At this point, I would not be surprised to see schools in Canada do the same.

Seeing how far technology has come in the 21st century, I would argue that ChatGPT has great potential in the classroom setting, and this technology should be leveraged to promote creativity and critical thinking.

Follow along with me to learn more about this AI and how it can be used as a learning tool rather than a learning threat in schools.

What is artifical intelligence?

Before I dive into my argument, let’s take a brief look at what artificial intelligence, or AI, is.

The origins of AI date back to the 1920s as just a mere concept. Over the years it has developed from Alan Turing’s Imitation Game to Yann LeClun’s Convolutional Neural Network, to the plethora of smart technologies that we have today (Ergen, 2019, p. 6).

While AI has been around for decades, everyone’s definition of it differs.

Rapaport (2020) explains artificial intelligence as a scientific study of computation in problem-solving and task-based scenarios (p. 54). Meanwhile, Ergen (2019) describes AI as a “technological wave” that has enabled machines to partake in human cognitive functions (p. 5).

Both definitions have their nuances based on each individual’s area of study, but in essence they surround this idea of technology processing information as humans would to perform tasks.

As surprising as this may be, AI technologies can be found in our daily routines. From Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri, answering any questions you may have to Netfilx providing you with curated watch suggestions based on your activity on the platform, AI surrounds us more than we may notice.

If you’re looking for a quick-and-easy run-down of ‘artificial intelligence,’ I recommend watching this short video from Duke University (2021), which explains the topic in less than two minutes.

What is artificial intelligence? / Duke University

The current state of AI in schools

As I mentioned, the discussion of AI in the classroom can bring out mixed emotions amongst university students and instructors. For instance, if you are currently a university student—or just a student in general—you may have heard of ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that launched in November 2022 and grew exponentially in popularity over the following couple of months. It’s recognized for its ability to produce language in a conversational manner with the help of user-generated instructions (OpenAI, 2023).

Going back to the article from NBC that I linked earlier on schools banning the use of ChatGPT, I can understand the reason for it. Rosenblatt (2023) notes in the article that this technology has inspired students to cheat on their assignments and exams and created a learning environment prone to “negative impacts” on students’ learning experience.

A representative from New York City’s Department of Education went on to argue that ChatGPT’s ability to answer questions does not enable students to think critically and engage in their problem-solving skills—both essential skills needed to strive in academics and in life (para. 3).

While I agree with the representative’s claim that AI technologies like ChatGPT don’t enable students to fully participate in critical thinking and problem-solving, I believe that these technologies can still be used to promote creativity and critical thinking in terms of the use of AI technology in the education system.

Why AI should be used in schools

At the rate that AI technology is growing in popularity, it will be difficult to rid school systems of its use entirely. Instead, schools should embrace the presence of ChatGPT and use it to challenge instructors’ and students’ creativity in the production of ideas and critical thinking in terms of the use of AI in education.

Mhlanga (2023) supports this argument, noting that not only does using ChatGPT in the classroom “modernize” learning, but it can be used as a means of learning. Teachers can use ChatGPT to gauge students’ preferred learning techniques and create new means of assessing students’ skills based on their preferences. Meanwhile, students can question the accuracy and reliability of the information produced by ChatGPT as part of their work. Ultimately, both teachers’ and students’ findings can provide them with opportunities to collaborate with one another and encourage the generation of new ideas to support each other’s learning journey (p. 10).

Halaweh (2023) makes a great point that builds on this. He explains that if schools want to ensure the safe, responsible, and ethical use of ChatGPT, there should be policies and guidelines enacted regarding the use of this AI technology in students’ works. In his example, he list that students should “examine and evaluate” the information produced by ChatGPT, as well as clearly disclose the use of the chatbot in the creation of one’s work (p. 5). By engaging in a full set of guidelines for the use of ChatGPT, schools can support the use of AI technology in the classroom without risking the obsolescence of creativity and critical thinking.

Conclusion

All in all, ChatGPT has its drawbacks in the classroom setting. However, with its rapid growth in popularity and use, we must consider the benefits of leveraging this AI technology as a tool to help teachers and students. While ChatGPT can cause concerns for cheating and unoriginality, it can challenge both parties to think about the means through which learning is evaluated and the ways in which the contents produced by ChatGPT are inaccurate and lacking context. Ultimately, this AI technology can be used to promote creativity and critical thinking skills.

References

Duke University. (2021, April 13). What is artificial intelligence? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0m6yaGlZh4

Ergen, M. (2019). What is artificial intelligence? Technical considerations and future perception. The Anatolian Journal of Cardiology, (22), 5-7. https://doi.org/10.14744/anatoljcardiol.2019.79091

Halaweh, M. (2023). ChatGPT in education: Strategies for responsible implementation. Contemporary Educational Technology, 15(2). https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/13036

Mhlanga, D. (2023). Open AI in education, the responsible and ethical use of ChatGPT towards lifelong learning. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4354422

OpenAI. (2023). Introducing ChatGPT. https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt

Rapaport, W. J. (2020). What is artificial intelligence? Journal of Artificial General Intelligence, 11(2), 52-56. https://doi.org/10.2478/jagi-2020-0003

Rosenblatt, K. (2023, January 5). ChatGPT banned from New York City public schools’ devices and networks. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/new-york-city-public-schools-ban-chatgpt-devices-networks-rcna64446