Teachers afraid of chatbot with artificial intelligence
2023.01.19 12:24
Teachers afraid of chatbot with artificial intelligence
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – Kristen Asplin was concerned about how her students might use the powerful new AI chatbot tool called ChatGPT to cheat when she heard about it recently going viral online for its ability to write terrifyingly good essays in a matter of seconds.
In response to ChatGPT, Asplin, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, quickly joined a new Facebook group where teachers just like her could discuss concerns and ideas for reorganizing their lessons and assignments. The tool, which went live at the end of November, can provide in-depth responses to straightforward questions such as “Who was the 25th president of the United States?” as well as responses to more difficult questions like, “What political developments caused the Roman Empire to fall?”
In the end, Asplin made the decision to alter her approach to writing assignments. She is now asking students to submit their papers at various stages of the writing process rather than solely focusing on the finished product, which ChatGPT may easily produce.
Regarding her new approach to class assignments, Asplin stated, “I am emphasizing and being more vigilant about the early steps in the writing process so I can see their progress.” As a result, students will be less likely to cheat because they will have more confidence in the writing process. They won’t be able to just type a prompt into the program and have the computer do their work for them because it will also show me their work along the way.
In the weeks since the artificial intelligence research group OpenAI released ChatGPT, the tool has been used to write articles (with more than a few factual errors) for at least one news publication; the tool is trained on a huge amount of online information to create its responses. drafted research paper abstracts that deceived some scientists and penned lyrics in the style of various artists, one of whom later responded, “This song sucks.”
However, a growing number of schools and educators are concerned about the tool’s immediate impact on students and their ability to cheat on assignments, even though many may view it as a novelty with unknown long-term consequences. For instance, the Facebook group that Asplin joined has had more than 800 new members in just a few weeks.
In response to ChatGPT, some educators are rethinking their assignments at a breakneck pace, despite the fact that it is still unclear how prevalent the tool is among students and how detrimental it may be to learning.
For the first time in years, some college instructors said they are requiring more individualized essays, while others said they are returning to in-class essays. Some teachers said they’ve also heard of students having to make short videos that explain how they think. Students and teachers in New York City and Seattle, on the other hand, are already prohibited from using ChatGPT on the district’s networks and devices.
Some educators are cautioning their students not to overreact to a brand-new technology, despite the fact that there have been a few instances of cheating that have circulated the internet and raised concerns regarding additional instances.
Alan Reid, an associate professor of English at Coastal Carolina University, stated, “There has been a mass hysteria response to ChatGPT potentially ruining writing, while other people think it is actually a good thing.” We have to try to find a middle ground and acknowledge both the advantages and disadvantages.
Kevin Pittle, an associate professor at Biola University in California, has been reflecting on what ChatGPT knows over the past few weeks.
He stated, “Before assigning materials, I thoroughly question ChatGPT to see what it does or doesn’t “know” about the material or have access to.” In light of this, he stated that he is now requiring his students to provide citations to certain sources that ChatGPT cannot access. These sources include textbooks, articles behind paywalls, and materials produced after ChatGPT was trained on internet data that is available as of 2021.
He doesn’t stop there either.
He stated, “ChatGPT doesn’t “have soul” because its fictional reflections are typically pretty lifeless. As a result, in one course, I am requiring much more “soul-searching” and reflective journaling than ChatGPT appears to be able to fake.
OpenAI previously informed Budrigannews that it made ChatGPT available as a preview to enable users to gain practical experience. That step was described as a “critical part of developing and deploying capable, safe AI systems” by a spokesperson.
The spokesperson stated, “We don’t want ChatGPT to be used for misleading purposes in schools or anywhere else, so we’re already developing mitigations to assist anyone in identifying text generated by that system.” We anticipate collaborating with educators to develop useful solutions and other strategies for utilizing artificial intelligence to benefit both teachers and students.
Some businesses, like Turnitin, are already actively developing plagiarism detection tools for ChatGPT that could assist educators in determining when assignments are written by the tool. With its other plagiarism detection tools, Turnitin already collaborates with 16,000 schools, publishers, and businesses. Edward Tuan, a Princeton student, told Budrigannews that the beta version of his own ChatGPT detection feature, ZeroGPT, has been tried by more than 95,000 people. He noted that there has been “incredible demand among teachers” thus far.
The issue is not limited to the United States. According to Alex Steel, a professor of law and director of teaching strategy at the University of New South Wales, a number of Australian universities have announced a return to closed book exams.
He stated to Budrigannnews, “There is an increasing number of academics concerned that they will not be able to detect AI-written answers.” The teachers’ lack of awareness of the kinds of questions that might be vulnerable is one reason for the concerns; as a result, staff members may push for exams to be returned until these issues are resolved.
Not all educators are looking for strategies to combat ChatGPT. The professor at Coastal Carolina University, Reid, is of the opinion that educators ought to collaborate with ChatGPT and instruct classroom best practices.
Reid said that teachers could get students to enter a question for an assignment into the tool and have them compare the results to what they wrote themselves. Students could also use this as a teaching opportunity to see what they missed, examine the various approaches they could have taken, or use it as a starting point for an outline, Reid stated.
He argued that since students will always find ways to cheat online, teaching them how ChatGPT can help them write better could be a useful step forward.
He stated, “The burden falls on the educators, and many do not want to be classroom police.” Teachers should examine their own practices and consider how it can be used to their advantage in order to deal with it. It is possible for students to use this opportunity to cheat and get away with it if they ignore it and are unaware of it.
English and linguistics professor Leslie Layne of the University of Lynchburg in Virginia concurs. She now intends to demonstrate to students how ChatGPT could help them write better.
“ChatGPT can give students a head start so they don’t start from scratch. However, it is far from a finished product,” she stated. We want students to add more sources and evidence so that it can be used as a foundation.
She compared ChatGPT to the outcry over calculators at their inception. She stated, “People were very concerned that we would lose our ability to do basic math.” We now carry one with our phones wherever we go, and it is so helpful.
Layne said that teachers could think about having their students evaluate how ChatGPT handled a question for an assignment, show them how to choose the best prompt for a response, or have ChatGPT argue one side of a topic while a student argues the other side.
She stated, “This could be a tool instructors use to help students express their ideas, like with other new technologies.” The only requirement for students is to learn how to adapt its writing to their own voice and improve it.
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