What is ChatGPT? AI technology sends schools scrambling to preserve learning

Source: The Hill | January 18, 2023 | Lexi Lonas

Not even two months after its creation, a new artificial intelligence (AI) technology called ChatGPT is getting banned from schools and stirring controversy among educators.

ChatGPT, a free and easy-to-use AI search tool, hit the ground running when it was launched to the public in November. A user types in a question and ChatGPT spits back out an easily understandable answer in an essay format.

Although a huge advancement in the technology field, educators and school systems must grapple with the new tool and the challenges it introduces.

“While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success,” Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Education, said.

New York City and Seattle public schools have banned the use of ChatGPT from their devices and networks, citing concerns about cheating and a negative impact on learning.

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Cheating and learning concerns

What makes ChatGPT a challenge for educators is the AI technology comes up with unique wording for answers to the same question. 

For example, when asking ChatGPT “What is an apple?”, one response begins, “An apple is a fruit that grows on a tree in the rose family, and is typically round and red, green, or yellow in color.” When asked the same question again, ChatGPT starts, “An apple is a pomaceous fruit, meaning it is produced by a deciduous tree in the rose family, cultivars of the species Malus domestica.”

These varying answers, which may all be correct, make it supremely difficult for an educator to discern whether a student used ChatGPT to write an assigned essay. 

In a statement given to The Hill, an OpenAI spokesperson said the company is already working with educators to address their concerns about ChatGPT.

“We don’t want ChatGPT to be used for misleading purposes in schools or anywhere else, so we’re already developing mitigations to help anyone identify text generated by that system. We look forward to working with educators on useful solutions, and other ways to help teachers and students benefit from artificial intelligence,” the spokesperson said.

While technologies continue to be created to catch plagiarism or cheating with AI, an arguably bigger concern is students using ChatGPT and not learning the material.

“It’s worrying that they’re not learning the research skills, the critical thinking skills. I think this would be the highest concern. The reason why we have them write these papers isn’t for them to write papers. It’s to really build those skills around thinking,” Sean Glantz, a regional chapter support coordinator for the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), said of students. 

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