The advancement of new technologies always raises some serious questions. Will computers take over? Will they take our jobs? What will our purpose be if everything is made up of A.I. technology? A.I. stands for Artificial Intelligence.
In layman’s terms, technology can do things that humans can do. A.I. bots can speak different languages, solve math problems and even learn human emotions. A.I. technology operates by using algorithms that analyze data and identify patterns.
The latest chatbot released by Elon Musk-founded OpenAI is called ChatGPT. It’s a text generating A.I. system that allows users to ask the bot anything they want. Need to write a paper on quantum physics? The bot can do that. Want to write a story like this one? It can do that as well.
Professors at Bismarck State College are already preparing for the bot to influence their students’ work in class.
“I’m certain there are students out there that will, are or have written papers with it,” said Michael Tomanek, BSC associate professor of English.
Tomanek said the bot is not always accurate and can give generic and uncreative responses. He said that if used in class it’s not technically plagiarism, though, it is still considered to be academic dishonesty. Tomanek decided to get ahead of the curve and used the chatbot as a part of his class syllabus.
“I thought what better than to have the bot itself write a statement that says it can’t be used in the class. And it wrote a very straightforward, clean paragraph saying not to use it,” Tomanek said.
It can be hard to distinguish writing made by ChatGPT from human writing. Apps can help detect them by determining if a field of text used a certain code. Tomanek said that professors should be able to recognize the written voice of their students.
“We’ve had plagiarism checkers for years, but the biggest plagiarism checker is ourselves,” Tomanek said. “You read something that either … doesn’t seem like the student who I’ve been working with, or … you get to the middle of a paper and you’re like ‘wait a minute, the voice changed’.”
ChatGPT can be useful. Tomanek said that he uses the chatbot for assignments in class to help students understand how the bot works and the importance of individual style and creativity. Tomanek had the bot write up love poems in class and said the result was unoriginal and poorly written, with standardized rhyme schemes. Tomanek and his class used examples to discuss the characteristics and features of bad poetry.
“We will eventually use it in other classes by simply analyzing it,” Tomanek said. “If it were a literature class, you could ask it a question because it knows plenty about published texts. So, if you ask it the themes, it will tell you the themes.”
Tomanek said by analyzing the answers the bot gives and fact-checking it, students can better understand proper uses for ChatGPT in the classroom and in everyday life.
“In conclusion, ChatGPT’s responses may be limited by its training data and lack the nuance and complexity that only human educators can provide. Additionally, there is a risk of overreliance on technology, which can result in a loss of critical thinking and problem-solving skills,” ChatGPT wrote. “Therefore, it is essential to use ChatGPT alongside human instruction and ensure that students receive a well-rounded education that includes the human element.”
