AI in education: Revolutionizing learning or cause for concern?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an integrated part of our everyday lives, offering transformative capabilities in different aspects. From education to con-tent creation, AI technologies have raised questions about their impact, ethical considerations, and the need for regulation. This essay seeks to explore the in-creasing impact of AI from students’ point of view. First, by explaining what AI is. Then, by looking at the current use of it in educational relations. Lastly, it is discussed whether AI should be banned or not.
AI is a system that can analyze, learn, and make decisions in the same way that humans do (Burns et al., 2023). It is programmed machines that are capable of imitating different aspects of human intelligence, such as abstract thinking, consideration, analysis, learning, problem solving, pattern recognition and much more (Burns et al., 2023). Even though there are many different examples of AI, the most debated at this moment is ChatGPT. It is a chatbot driven by artificial intelligence, trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response (OpenAI, 2022).
ChatGPT is a free tool and accessible to everyone who can access the internet and has an email account. Because of this, ChatGPT reached approximately 100 million active users in only two months, making it the fastest growing consu-mer application in history (Hu, 2023). A lot of these users are students, who use ChatGPT as an academic tool to help them with homework or assignments (Westfall, 2023). Applications of ChatGPT in education can include personalized tutoring, answering questions or generating content (Jezic et al., 2023). Looking at numbers, 30% of college students have used ChatGPT for schoolwork this past year, hereof 46% use it frequently (Intelligent, 2023). Furthermore, would 3 out of 4 ChatGPT users recommend it as a tool, to another student (Intelligent, 2023). Overall, do students who study with the tool, have a positive experience. However, the increasing use of ChatGPT causes a lot of concern among educa-tors, related to plagiarism and cheating, which has led to strict policies around its use at some educational institutions. Therefore, the big question is; should Chat-GPT be banned, or should it be embraced?
Due to data enhancement, algorithm optimization, feedback etc., the quality of AI will only be better and improved every day. Looking at the increased user interest and registration, and the fact that the tool has already become an inte-gral part of the community, it is safe to say that ChatGPT is here to stay. When Google and Microsoft got introduced back in the days, people where critical and skeptical of that too, because it was new and unknown. But today, we can-not imagine society without it. In my opinion, it is the same with ChatGPT. We need to find a way to work with it, and learn how to use the tools it offers in the best possible way. Through the delivery of personalized feedback and support, improvement and efficiency of learning, and broader access to information, ChatGPT has the potential to bring benefits to both students and educators (Jezic et al., 2023).
Educators worry about cheating, and employees worry that they will be repla-ced by a machine. Taking the Google example again, I am sure that when it came on the market, the same concerns were raised back then too. Even though Google won the competition of being the biggest, it does not mean that there were no other contesters. So, even though ChatGPT are the biggest AI-chatbot right now, there will be more. Technology is going to develop in such pace, that it will be impossible as an instructor, to stay updated on all the new AI tools, and control every use of it. Therefore, we might as well surrender now, and embrace it; “[…] schools should treat ChatGPT the way they treat calcula-tors — allowing it for some assignments, but not others […]” (Roose, 2023). With the right approach, it can be an effective teaching and learning tool. Educators need to see all its opportunities, rather than viewing potential problems. And to be honest, what is a ban of ChatGPT on a school’s network really going to do? Students have other devices, or will access it outside of school. Banning will not work. The media landscape is changing, and we are seeing a shift, happening in information consumption patterns. For example, is an increasing number of people as likely to trust news and information from social media, as they are from news outlets (Liedke & Gottfried, 2022). Such development shows that people are open and ready to embrace change.
However, ChatGPT is not perfect. It is worth noticing that when not used pro-perly, it can cause problems. AI technologies, like ChatGPT, are trained on large amounts of data, and if that data contains biases, the AI tool can produce bias-ed outputs (Jezic et al., 2023). Furthermore, ChatGPT must provide accurate responses to the student’s prompts. To achieve this, it must be trained on high-quality and relevant data, and ChatGPT should continuously be monitored and improved (Jezic et al., 2023). As a user, one also has to be aware of the automa-tion bias. When having algorithms and AI that can make decisions for us, we need to remember that we are only exposed to a selected number of sources. Therefore, it is important to keep curiosity in mind, and to look beyond of what is offered to us. It is important to be critical and think critically (Caulfield, 2016). All of the above-mentioned factors should be considered, if one chooses to use ChatGPT in an educational setting.
As a student, I believe that we need to learn how to use AI in our education, and to embrace it in our everyday lives. For educational purpose, an integration of ChatGPT has the potential to bring a positive change in the learning experien-ce. Overall, there is no doubt about that ChatGPT has come to stay – so we might as well get on board and join the AI revolution.
References:
Burns, E., Laskowski, N., & Tucci, L. (2023). Artificial intelligence (AI). TechTarget.Com. https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/AI-Artificial-Intelligence
Caulfield, M. (2016). Yes, Digital Literacy. But Which One? Hapgood. https://hapgood.us/2016/12/19/yes-digital-literacy-but-which-one/
Hu, K. (2023). ChatGPT sets record for fastest-growing user base—Analyst note. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-sets-record-fastest-growing-user-base-analyst-note-2023-02-01/
Intelligent. (2023). ONE-THIRD OF COLLEGE STUDENTS USED CHATGPT FOR SCHOOLWORK DURING THE 2022-23 ACADEMIC YEAR [Intelligent.com]. https://www.intelligent.com/one-third-of-college-students-used-chatgpt-for-schoolwork-during-the-2022-23-academic-year/
Jezic, G., Chen-Burger, J., Kusek, M., Sperka, R., Howlett, R. J., & Jain, L. C. (2023). Agents and Multi-agent Systems: Technologies and Applications 2023. Springer Publishing. https://link-springer-com.ep.fjernadgang.kb.dk/book/10.1007/978-981-99-3068-5
Liedke, J., & Gottfried, J. (2022). US adults under 30 now trust information from social media almost as much as from national news outlets [World Economic Forum].
OpenAI. (2022). Introducing ChatGPT [Openai.com]. https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt
Roose, K. (2023). Don’t Ban ChatGPT in Schools. Teach With It. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/technology/chatgpt-schools-teachers.html
Westfall, C. (2023). Educators Battle Plagiarism As 89% Of Students Admit To Using OpenAI’s ChatGPT For Homework. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2023/01/28/educators-battle-plagiarism-as-89-of-students-admit-to-using-open-ais-chatgpt-for-homework/?sh=7aae6ab7750d
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