ChatGPT(Generative Pretrained Transformer)
I just read this article (published today): https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-educators-concerned-that-students-may-be-tempted-to-cheat-through-ai-chatgpt-1.6234159
In this article BC educators are worried about students using ChatGPT to cheat. ChatGPT can write essays, and cover letters, and provide answers to complex questions with a high degree of accuracy all within a few seconds, for free.
I had heard of this AI chatbot and tried to create an account a few days ago to check it out, however, I was given a message along the lines of “sorry, we are at capacity right now.” I tried again just now, and I am getting a “sorry this content is not available right now” message.
There is a multitude of articles touting the popularity of the technology as the most intelligent AI chatbot to date, and an equally large number of videos, discussions and posts regarding the chatbot’s uses and users. Here’s another example where Ryan Reynolds uses ChatGPT to impersonate himself and have the bot write an advertisement for his cell business Mint Mobile.
ChatGPT and other similar technologies are easily accessed on mobile devices and could profoundly influence education. How will this type of technology impact your role?
We are seeing a rapid expanse in the capabilities of AI for the generation of content (text, images, video, audio) that has seen tremendous growth even over the three years I have been in the MET program. In my first year, most discussions of AI were focussed on the possibilities, but now we are faced with _capabilities_, with actual productive outputs. While the dangers, risks, and negative applications are very real and well-discussed, I think it does have an exciting appeal for the education sector. A teacher could use an AI like ChatGTP to generate a selection of short reading on a specific topic, but seed the generated content with specific biases––and then the students be challenged to read the content critically to identify the inherent bias. The teacher could compose these themselves, I’m sure (full disclosure: I’m a physics teacher so I feel this is a difficult task), but ChatGTP could generate new content quickly, with multiple variations, which could appeal to the specific interests of the students.
Hi Allan,
Your post brought back my first impression of ChatGPT when it was the topic of discussion on social media. As you pointed out, my first query was indeed regarding the possibilities of ChatGPT. Prior to experimenting, I pondered on how collaborating with chatGPT could augment my productivity. I have showed my students how to use chatGPT and other music apps to create their own mini rap songs as a way to practice sentence writing. It was fun, fast and effective.
Thanks for initiating this discussion, Meagan, and it anticipates what you and Ritu will engage us with in Week 7 when you host “Artificial Intelligence” in the Moveable Feast.
I fully concur with the importance of the topic, and predict that AI-based impacts, challenges and transformative opportunities will be more profound than we can possibly imagine, and will arise astoundingly quickly this year and continuously over the next decade in such a way that nobody will be able to ignore them, or remember what life was like before they existed.
It isn’t just about text creation – it is about all forms of creativity. There are already AI-based tools for creating text, images, videos, music, lesson plans, instructional designs, etc. I can’t imagine any area of human productivity where some team somewhere isn’t building an AI-tool to accelerate that productivity. For example, a nephew of mine was recently hired by a US-based startup that is developing an AI-tool that will take any two-dimensional photograph and generate accurate 3-D models of any objects in that photograph. What will people use it for? The mind boggles at the creative possibilities…
My own primary engagement with AI is that for the last three years I’ve been prototyping an AI-based search engine called HISWAI (an acronym of “human intelligence supported with artificial intelligence“) that we hope will enable research professionals to dive deeper and more comprehensively into whatever topics they aim to become expert in. We haven’t got it right yet…
The massive interest in AI-tools means that they will get better and better astonishingly quickly (remember that ChatGPT is barely a year old!!!), so hold on to your horses.
I look forward to Week 7!
David
P.S. – last year I proposed to the MET executive that it is critical for us to immediately launch a new MET course entirely focused on AI in the Future of Education. To be provocative I used different AI tools to write all the text, do the instructional design, do the graphic design, and generate all of the images for the proposal(!!). I haven’t heard back yet, but I hope it will happen soon – MET graduates deserve to formally engage with this topic on a high level.
Hi David, thank you for your response. Your insights on the wide range of AI-based tools that are currently being developed are very much appreciated. The work you are doing with HISWAI sounds interesting; you’ll have to let us all know when it’s up and running! A new course entirely focused on AI in the Future of Education is a much-needed addition to the MET program, and I hope that the MET executive will take it into consideration.
Wow, there is a ton of information to process. I immediately created a Chatgpt account after reading the post about it. Someone at my husband’s workplace sent him a link to create a ChatGPT account, so I did the same. I have used it to plan my lessons and design some worksheets. I’m using it to study “Python programming.”
HISWAI sounds incredibly intriguing and optimistic.
ChatGPT is taking the world by storm. I first heard about it a month or so ago and my first impression was awe. I tested it out to generate some ideas for scenario-based questions I was struggling to write for a course I was designing. It spit out some great ideas that I could then tweak to make exactly what I needed (unfortunately I don’t have the option to upload an image in my comment here to show the output of my query).
From there, I was curious to think about additional use cases from the design side – how can this tool support teachers and instructors in their day to day? A couple ideas I came up with were supporting teachers in writing rubric criteria for a presentation or generating a set of steps to write a business proposal. These are resources that would take teachers a good chunk of time to create, but with this AI tool, teachers can generate a good starting place then adapt according to their specific needs. I don’t think the output is ever going to be 100% accurate or sufficient to one’s needs – I believe some refinement will always be required to turn it into an ideal production, but I welcome opposing opinions on this to help me broaden my perspective on tools like this.
As you can see, my head tends to go towards the positive uses of something, but I can see the concern for plagiarism and academic misconduct with this one. I think it will be important to harness its power in a positive way and teach students to engage with it in ways that encourage appropriate use. We should also think about the authenticity of assessments and adding multiple stages or multimodal components to help ensure authentic production and evaluation of learning.
I came across an article this morning that a computer science major at Princeton has built an app to counter ChatGPT and help teachers identify what has been written by human vs machine.
Article: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2023/01/17/1149206188/this-22-year-old-is-trying-to-save-us-from-chatgpt-before-it-changes-writing-for
GPTZero AI detection tool: https://etedward-gptzero-main-zqgfwb.streamlit.app/
I used the tool on my post above to see how it works. I find the results challenging to interpret, but ultimately the tool deemed it inconclusive – more text is needed to make an accurate judgement.
Very fascinating to continue following the media coverage of this tool as it unfolds!
Hi Lynsey, I finally got into chatGPT last night. I was pretty amazed at what it could do. I agree with you totally that education should look toward positive ways to incorporate these types of technologies. I was thinking the next thing will be a tool to combat chatGPT, (the battle of the bots) so thanks for the ChatGPTZero link. I’m going to test that out later today.
I also read an article about ChatGPT, but instead being used in cyberattacks. “One reason for that is the rising access of technology that enables the development of malware, scripting and other tools for potential hackers such as the AI-powered computer program ChatGPT.”
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/why-are-there-so-many-cyberattacks-lately-an-explainer-on-the-rising-trend/ar-AA16iIZV?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=8133b1f81be34e7b862b4a4bd2cdfba2
Hi, thanks for sharing the article. This type of use is definitely a negative side-effect to the technology. However, I like what the article said “We have to switch to prevention rather than trying to detect, because by the time you’ve detected what’s happening, it’s far too late,” said Falzon. “It’s already been successful.”
True! I think of that old saying, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”