How will OpenAI’s ChatGPT affect education?
December 21, 2022
Imagine being able to have a personal robot assistant that can answer all questions in a matter of seconds.Well that is very quickly becoming a new reality. OpenAI is a research and development company that is focused on creating artificial intelligence for the benefit of everyone. Recently they came out with a new chat bot called “ChatGPT”.
ChatGPT has been gaining quite the following, in just five days the app surpassed one million users, for comparison Instagram took two and a half months and Netflix took 41 months to reach one million users respectively. There is no doubt that ChatGPT is becoming very popular. This bot can do everything from debugging code to writing an essay for someone. It even answers simple questions similar to how Google would answer. Their new model uses a conversational format, meaning the bot is able to answer follow up questions, admit its mistakes and challenges incorrect ideas.
However, the bot is still new and is subject to error. According to OpenAI President Greg Bockman, “it is not ready to be relied on for anything important.” Questions are being raised on whether or not ChatGPT will outdo Google. People have experimented with making a google extension that allows the ChatGPT response to pop up on screen beside google to give a better response to the question than google would have. Although, it is important to remember that chat bots like this one are not replacements for human expertise and judgment. ChatGPT can provide helpful and accurate responses in certain situations.
How does this affect students at OHS
Many students have been experimenting with using the chat bot to do things such as doing their homework and writing essays for them. By typing in a simple prompt students can have an essay written for them in less than 30 seconds. Many teachers have talked about this and have questioned if they need to go back to older styles of learning to combat plagiarism and cheating such as in class essay responses. The high school has blocked the website on the school computers but that will not stop the people who use their personal laptops and devices. According to the OHS student handbook, “Students found to have copied sections from books, encyclopedias or off the Internet, and turned this work in as their own, will receive a reduction in grade for that assignment up to a fail.” Senior Noah Wellnitz said, ”I don’t think the AI is very ethical, it’s obviously not your own words and it’s cheating in a way.”
According to LifeArchitect.ai, the makers of ChatGPT have only scratched the surface with what is possible with this bot. It is currently in the GPT3 stage and is expected to be in the GPT4 stage in early 2023. OpenAI is always looking to improve their new technology, “GPT4 is expected to be 500 times larger than the GPT3 version. For comparison GPT4 will have nearly the same amount of parameters as there are synapses in the human brain.”
AI has the potential to revolutionize certain industries and improve daily lives but it is important to carefully consider the ethical implications and ensure that its development and deployment are done in a responsible and transparent manner.