This guide covers some of these, including CHATGPT, as well as a range of other artificial intelligence tools for content creation. It aims to make staff more aware of these tools, how they can be used in learning and teaching, and their potential benefits and drawbacks. Those who wish to update their assessments to include considerations of these matters are referred to existing materials on assessment design.
What is ChatGPT?
An example of an AI writing tool is: CHATGPT. There are many other AI content creation tools, which focus not just on writing, but a whole range of content creation. You have probably already used these tools, without even realising it – e.g. Microsoft Editor. CHATGPT writes content that is properly structured, grammatically correct, and on the whole sounds as if a human wrote it. This creates a very comfortable user experience for many people as it feels like talking to another person, not a ‘bot’.
How do CHATGPT and other AI content tools work
AI writing tools function using natural language processing. Through this, they can simulate natural conversations and write content by predicting the next word in a sequence based on their vast database. They can produce outlined paragraphs, even full papers, based on the knowledge extracted from this warehouse. These tools learn from user-provided responses and all the other data that is available on the internet, etc. AI visual content tools such as OpenArt, Dalle-2, Embrace, work along similar lines but rely on image/shape recognition in combination with natural language processing.
Why is this a problem today
While artificial intelligence (AI) tools for content and writing production have been out there for a long time, this was the first time that this tool, called CHAT, was open to the general public free-of-charge, starting in November of 2022. The reason for the wide availability is partly how they plan to train this artificial intelligence software. By giving it out freely to the world, the business increased exposure to the tester pool and the resulting data available to it. Every time someone posts a query to CHAT or “likes” a reply helps to train it further. This free access created opportunities for people to experiment with CHATGPT, testing what it can and cannot do. However, it also raised concerns about how it could be used, specifically that students could inappropriately use it to write their assessments in breach of academic integrity rules.
Questions were also raised about the extent to which a student can use a tool such as CHATGPT before the work presented can no longer be considered to represent their own learning. Being the free version, this preview is clearly stated as a ‘research preview’; therefore, access is most likely temporary. Openai, the parent company that owns CHATGPT, is a private and profit-making organization. For now, it makes money by sorting out and selling user information, including items such as emails and phone numbers, to third parties, but will later require a fee to use the tool. Regardless of what will change regarding access to CHATGPT, AI content generation tools will advance, and more of them will come along. Thus, it is essential to learn how to respond to these advancements in an educated and thoughtful way.
What can CHAT do? And what can it not do
CHATGPT can produce text—for example, essays, papers, poetry, blogs, newspaper articles. The text it produces appears to have been written by a human because it follows the standard conventions of writing for the type of text it is producing. It can also produce computer code, although it is not always perfect. It is not so good at producing essays based on a prompt; a more iterative process is better for better results (Webb, 2022a). It cannot always provide in-depth answers or critical thinking or address ethical questions as we might anticipate in a higher education setup, nor can it always provide accurate information (Webb, 2022b; Davis, 2023).
Its database only goes up to 2021, so questions about events after that date will often bring back a response that no answer is possible. It does not answer questions on issues that ask for information on a particular topic, for example, it will ask if the answer it gives is copyrighted or whether it complies with data protection acts and it will tell you to find a lawyer, or on more personal issues it will not give you an answer about it unless you have a large public profile online (see Webb (2022b) for a practical example). Overall, though, CHATGPT does not back up references to its sources, especially in any sort of academic form. So anyone who actually uses this stuff will still have to add in references by hand.
Can I do anything to discourage a student from relying on CHATGPT
Unfortunately, we cannot stop a student from using it. Some universities have attempted to ban access to such software on campus, but this just ignores the fact that students have mobile devices and study off campus as well as elsewhere Rather than trying to block access, we should encourage our students to think critically about new tools like CHATGPT and instruct them on how to use such tools appropriately in the service of their learning and skill development.
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