How can Education Industry counter the ChatGPT 'threat'.

It was a warm and humid December 2022 evening. I was in Mumbai savouring the last few days of my vacation before heading back to Sydney. Amid some multi-tasking — casually scrolling through my mobile notifications, finishing my iced coffee, and conversing with my cousin about the stock market, ChatGPT stood out prominently in the notification list. My first reaction was ‘just another chatbot’. I ignored it and carried on.

The next few days ChatGPT jumped out consistently amongst other feeds. Intrigued, I had to try it out and my first impressions were consistent with what was happening globally. Digital pundits started commenting on how this may be a Google killer while others came up with creative applications in media and related industries.?For the record, this essay was not written by ChatGPT.

My immediate thought was about how ChatGPT would impact Higher Education. After all, I have been serving Education clients for the past few years and graduated with a shiny MBA from Australian National University (ANU) a few months prior. I was intrigued as to how I would have responded if ChatGPT had been released a year ago. The sophistication with which ChatGPT instantly belts out human-like comprehensions got me to think about how quickly one could turn around assignments. Time was of the essence as we had to juggle other important commitments while studying.

As if the post-pandemic impacts were not enough, it will be interesting to examine the responses to ChatGPT. Some are calling for outright bans on ChatGPT from academic structures. In this day and age, banning seems counter-productive and unsustainable as students may find a way out. First principles thinking may be one way forward to break down complex problems with iterative building blocks of solutions. With this context, let us examine some of the important elements that Educators may have to embed into their operations to deal with ChatGPT and most probably the upcoming new and similar AI applications.

View ChatGPT as a tool and not a threat

Originality: Tough ChatGPT seems to be an advanced AI and on sophisticated ML models it may lack critical-thinking and problem-solving capabilities. Incentivizing students to actively use critical thinking may be essential. After all, ChatGPT was an original invention too.

Complimentary to Learning & Research: When Google Search became mainstream in the later part of 2000s, Educators were concerned about plagiarism. However, over the years, Google Search has become an important tool complementing learning and research. Over the years, administrators have built effective governance around it. Similarly, ChatGPT should be viewed as a tool to complement learning & teaching.

Assessments: It may be time to examine the rubrics model and innovate curriculums and outcomes and assessments. Open-book assessments are an excellent example of how Educators innovated assessment models to encourage analytical thinking. Similar innovation will be important to accommodate AI technologies of the future.

Use AI to beat AI

Data: Harnessing the power of data has become extremely critical to counter the AI threat. Learning & teaching effectiveness can be consistently improved by monitoring data and using AI models. High Powered Computing and Cloud technologies can be leveraged for research.

Personalisation: From ‘good to have’, personalisation has moved into the realm of ‘must have’. Teachers will need to intimately detect anomalies during student learning and assessments and build AI technologies to provide personalised focus on student cohorts and build technologies to counter ChatGPT-like intrusions in academic content and moving away from assembly-line curriculum delivery.

While writing this, my notification called out that?BuzzFeed has decided to use ChatGPT for content creation and may cut 12% workforce. This has sent their stock price northwards may only be the start.

I have always been an ardent fan of the soft-spoken late Clayton Christensen’s school of disruptive innovation.?He predicted the impacts of disruptive innovation on various industries including Education and ways to overcome future threats.

In conclusion, AI is right at the doorstep of industries ( the general feeling was that industry-ready AI was 5+ years away). Just like any other industry, the Education industry has its work cut out for some new challenges.