The Love-Hate Relationship Between Colleges and Chat GPT
Chat GBT, a highly intelligent new AI, is creating headaches for professors.
Emmanuela Panepinto '24
Colleges are navigating new challenges posed by Chat GPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot that is capable of answering just about anything.
Chat GPT, a revolutionary free-use new technology unveiled late last year by OpenAI, is already raising difficult questions about the future of AI in education, creating shortcuts for students and headaches for educators. The chatbot is able to output human-like responses and craft essays in a matter of seconds. It even earned headlines recently for passing the Master of Business Administration final exam at UPenn’s Wharton School of Business, in a study conducted by a university professor into the AI’s efficacy.
The sudden emergence of this powerful online tool has forced professors to reevaluate their policies, aiming to thwart cheating. Many have moved to explicitly prohibit its usage for assignments, instituting penalties if its usage is detected in submitted work. Some of the nation’s largest public school systems, including New York and Seattle, have already banned the use of ChatGPT on their devices and networks.
While many professors have edited their syllabi given concerns over potential cheating, some are optimistic on how students may utilize it.
According to Marist College Communication Professor, Dr. Qihao Ji, Chat GPT “is one of those inventions that if you are a college student, you ought to know how to play around and utilize it for your own good, and I emphasize on the ‘good’ part because depending on how you use it, it might derail.”
Given that Ji’s course assignments are mainly essay-based, Chat GBT could raise issues for his classes since the bot is able to formulate adequate responses. Ji isn’t yet worried about potential cheating as he trusts that the students in his classes are there to learn. Ji believes the new AI may even be beneficial for students because it may help in “navigating some messy topics.” Chat GBT can be helpful in providing concise explanations of complex topics.
Ji said it’s no easy feat to prevent students from cheating, but he aims to combat that through the design of his assignment prompts. He has also implemented a new policy in his course syllabus, stating that “using AI to complete assignments or other coursework is considered cheating and will not be tolerated. If you are found to have used AI to complete assignments, you may face disciplinary action, including failing the assignment or the course.”
Ji believes there are only two outcomes of student Chat GPT usage: extremely powerful or really detrimental.
“Like all the great inventions — such as cars, computers or nuclear bombs — there are ways to abuse it and there are ways to make it really work for good. So, the trend will inevitably be that students who know how to leverage the power of Chat GPT will be really good at it, they will learn a tremendous amount of things from it,” he said. “But, I worry that some students who, for whatever reason, lack the motivation or interest may fall behind in using it in some problematic ways or in not engaging in it at all.”
Marist College Cybersecurity Professor, Andrew Tokash, agrees with Ji on student usage of Chat GPT.
“It will be a problem for some students who may want to find ways to not do the required work. I think some students will be able to use it in a positive way including doing some research with it or for it,” Tokash said.
He believes that there are students that will use the chatbot in a beneficial way, but it is inevitable that there are those students who will use it to cut corners, resulting in them not retaining the information. “Since education started, certain people have found ways to go around the assessment process, and this is just the latest way,” he added.
In regards to how the chatbot will affect his course, Professor Tokash said that it may result in him putting more effort into the types of questions he creates for his assessments, which he believes isn’t a bad thing because it will push him to elevate his assignments. With essay based courses, Professor Tokash believes that Chat GPT will require professors to create assignments that cannot be completed with generic answers, they will need to create more elaborate, in depth assessments that cannot be formulated by a chatbot.