Since the introduction of the Open AI (Artificial Intelligence) chatbot, ChatGPT, in November 2022, the internet has been filled with discourse about the software’s potential benefits and threats. More specifically, AI has become a hot-button issue in the field of both K-12 and higher education.
A chatbot is a form of AI that has the ability to generate human-like responses when provided with a prompt or question.
MCCC history professor, Catherine Crawford, explained, “I think everybody in higher education is talking about it. I don’t think there’s been a consensus. There’s one push to go back to all expository writing in class. Like, let’s go back to Blue Books, all essays have to be done in class so that this can’t be used. There’s another that’s sort of like, well look, this technology isn’t going away. Let’s try and figure out how to incorporate it.”
ChatGPT’s accessibility to the public distinguishes it from previous forms of artificial intelligence. In order to use it, the average person simply needs internet access and an email address to create an account.
Educators who oppose the use of AI technology are generally anxious that the chatbots will be used by students to generate essays and homework responses, making it difficult to evaluate students’ writing ability.
Fears of technology enabling cheating at Mercer are not new. In 2011, the VOICE ran an opinion piece entitled: “Online classes are harmful to students, promote cheating and dishonesty”.
The article stated, “In a recent VOICE survey done on the Mercer campus, 49 out of 50 Mercer students said that they would most likely cheat in an online class. In a separate VOICE survey of only students who are taking online classes, 20 out of 20 admitted to cheating at least once during their online class.”
At the beginning of the Spring 2022 semester, MCCC Professor of English and Journalism, Matthew Kochis, encountered an instance of plagiarism in which the student most likely used a form of AI.
The image that Prof. Kochis viewed when investigating the student’s assignment can be seen below. It appeared as a massive block of unending text and code, without spaces, indentations, or page breaks.
“Why would a student plagiarize so soon and so early in a class, and especially on an assignment that if you wrote three sentences, you would’ve gotten a hundred? It was a very low threshold kind of assignment that shouldn’t cause a lot of stress,” said Prof. Kochis.
As a member of Mercer’s Academic Integrity Committee, Prof. Kochis is not only concerned with the effects of AI software on increasing individual instances of cheating, but also on MCCC’s integrity as an educational institution.
The student has since withdrawn from the course.
On the other hand, some educators are hopeful for the opportunities that Artificial Intelligence may provide.
Robert Obemeier, Learning Analyst for MercerOnline, presented a variety of academic scenarios in which AI could be used as a tool to practice skills or generate study methods.
“If I’m learning a new language, I can go home and I can link into the AI and I can say, “I want to have a discussion in Spanish on my family with you, and I want you to correct me if I say something wrong” and I can have that discussion and the AI will respond,” Obemeier said.
Along with academic essays, chatbots like ChatGPT have the capability to produce knock-knock jokes, movie scripts, and Shakespearean sonnets.
“AI are designed like the human mind. They’re designed to have a similar structure as the human mind with neurons and then connections between those neurons. Those connections become stronger as information repeats to the AI,” Obermeier said.
According to Forbes, some public school districts have already moved to ban student use of the software, including Seattle Public Schools, Los Angeles Unified Public Schools, and New York Public Schools, the largest district in the country.
Many universities, including nearby Princeton University, have declined to ban the software, instead citing its “potential usefulness” as an academic tool.
ChatGPT is not the only AI of its kind that is currently available. Both Google and Microsoft have developed their own chatbots which are now available to users around the world.
The homepage of ChatGPT cites its possible limitations. These include: “May occasionally generate incorrect information; May occasionally produce harmful instructions or biased content; Limited knowledge of world and events after 2021.”
Although it is not yet known how the technology will evolve, it is clear that ChatGPT and similar forms of AI will continue to change education, and life, as we know it.
