Cheating on essays is not the reason why students will use Generative AI

The average user finally has free access to test the technology that will change our world as much as the Personal Computer and the Mobile Internet did. We already have articles from academia and experts comparing OpenAI to a virus released to the public, claiming for restrictions, and using as one key argument that students will use it to cheat. We can do better, and our youth is capable of using these disruptive technologies for good.

Someone wrote this yesterday:?

"[S]hame on OpenAI for launching this pocket nuclear bomb without restrictions into an unprepared society."I obviously feel ChatGPT (and its ilk) should be withdrawn immediately. And, if ever re-introduced, only with tight restrictions." - "I heard from a colleague at UCLA who told me they have no idea what to do with essays at the end of the current term, where they're getting hundreds per course and thousands per department, because they have no idea anymore what's fake and what's not."

Who is going to define the restrictions? This brings back memories of when online search and internet access was going to ruin education.

Why don't we ensure our professors are proficient in these new technologies to enhance and supplement their teaching?

Can we emphasize critical thinking, giving our students the right tools to avoid a blind belief in anything published just because a celebrity, a conversational AI, a politician, or a public figure said so in a social network feed?

#ChatGPT is a significant step forward, but still prone to many errors as it provides general knowledge rather than subject matter expertise in one area. For example, it did a great job at finding a bug in TensorFlow code, but if I ask what is 24,315 * 1,234, the answer provided is 29,800,310 (wrong). In general, when using conversational user experiences, users tend to trust the results blindly, which is something we need to address.

?The current version of ChatGPT is a solid release to unleash the imagination of students, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, on how to use conversational and generative AI to have a positive impact. Fine-tuning generative ai models for specific domains will be disruptive in many fields.

The release of ChatGPT is a milestone similar to the Personal Computer on every desk and the ubiquitous mobile internet. There are many scientific, academic, social, and productivity-related applications to be unleashed.

OpenAI can help students become more efficient writers, as it can provide them with more accurate grammar, spelling, and other forms of feedback. It can also help students identify topics, develop research questions, and comb through large sets of trusted documents which can help them become better critical thinkers.

A year from now, I will be typing this article in a new LinkedIn user interface, with real-time assistance from OpenAI. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspaces will replace large portions of their user interface with conversational and generative AI.

I see the potential for fact-checking bots to fight misinformation. And I can see conversational and generative AI assisting individuals with some impairment to communicate better.

After four days of asking #ChatGPT to write poems about cats, craft concise answers to emails I received, find obvious bugs in some code, and argue whether or not we live in a simulation, I wanted to do something useful with this amazing tech.

It took me less than one day to write some code to access OpenAI using their paid API to classify large datasets related to thousands of Human Services Organizations and comb through ~100 research papers we had collected. The tool summarized and classified them to speed up a few projects we are working on related to?Search 3.0 applied to human services organizations in the US. Our total bill from OpenAI API usage was less than $50. It will save us weeks of data gathering and classification. This functionality will be a standard in productivity suites within two years.

I am confident our students will embrace Generative AI to become better researchers, scientists, writers, creators, artists, and entrepreneurs.

Yes, there are bad actors everywhere, but how has every societal prohibition worked so far? I am paying attention to the potentially negative consequences of these new technologies spreading misinformation and seeding division. We should focus on opening the dialog with our youth to explore how we can use all of this to have a positive impact.

If our first reaction to something like OpenAI and ChatGPT is that students will use it to cheat, it speaks volumes of how little we think about the next generation and how much we fear change. This type of thinking is partially responsible for the continued decline in University enrollment and one reason why the open debate about the value of the $1.4T on student debt is louder than ever.

Instead of thinking about restrictions, we will better serve our youth by helping them navigate the turbulent waters of the AI revolution. How can we help them embrace Generative and Conversational AI and other technologies to reach their potential and positively impact the world?

If we are worried about the misuse of AI, what are we actively doing to mitigate harm and augment positive outcomes? You can play an active role: learn about it, apply it to your subject area of expertise, and imagine possibilities; start today; start now.

#openai #ai #highereducation #socialimpact #GenerativeAI