PLATTSBURGH, NY – Since the launch of ChatGPT in November, the artificial intelligence chatbot has changed the way students learn and educators teach.
GhatGPT has the ability to understand and produce human-like responses to text-based questions by using a form of artificial intelligence called deep learning. While some ate excited about its possibilities, others see it as a vehicle for cheating and question whether it should be allowed on high school and college campuses.
Dr. John Chambers of SUNY Plattsburgh said he is open to students using it for simple academic questions, but he doesn’t think it’s ready for large-scaled answers.
“There’s this fear that students are going to use ChatGPT for their essay questions,” he said, “but it’s not quite there yet to draft an entire book.”
Meanwhile, teachers like Dr. John McMahon of SUNY Plattsburgh are concerned about academic dishonesty and are restricting their students use of ChatGPT.
“I would rather hear and read a student’s thoughts and analysis in their own writing voice than the perfectly, grammatically correct (version) according to ChatGPT’s sentence,” said Dr. McMahon.
While ChatGPT is popular on college campuses, some students at SUNY Plattsburgh have not bought into the platform.
“Personally, I haven’t been interested in using it,” said Jason Lynch. “I like to use my own work. I feel like it’s more beneficial if you’re doing the work yourself,”
“I haven’t, but more so because I haven’t heard of it before rather than being against it,” said Kai Hemingway, a junior at SUNY Plattsburgh.
However, Hemingway and Lynch are open to the possibility of Chat GPT becoming a normal educational tool.
“If it’s used as a resource to help teachers, I feel like that is a good reason to use it,” said Hemingway.
“As technology begins to grow and ai begins to develop more, teachers and professors could probably see that and use it as a resource to help students,” said Lynch.
Chambers agrees. “We can embrace it and learn to use it to our benefit,” said Dr. Chambers.
