Nicholas Allard: The Classic Conundrum presented by ChatGPT
ChatGPT, a bot created and released by OpenAI only last November, has brought about contradictory eruptions of interest, hype, and concern. The generative pretrained transformer technology used by ChatGPT allows it to be used as a digital tool for writing prose. However, the classic conundrum facing ChatGPT is the irony of how artificial intelligence inventions like ChatGPT and humans have a lot to learn about each other.
In the current stage, ChatGPT operates by predicting upon request what the user wants to write, similar to how spell check and word processing function. Despite its usefulness, concerns have been raised about its potential to promote cheating by students and interfere with teaching or learning.
While technology-driven change is inevitable, there are no easy answers about how and when to adopt new technology. ChatGPT is imperfect and was released while still under development. It is prone to repetition and irrelevant content, which can lead to unintended plagiarism. Moreover, it's not yet particularly useful for many workplace communications involving teamwork, evaluations, and nuanced personal conversations.
Businesspeople, professionals, and educators who learn how to make good use of new advanced networked computer tools like ChatGPT, while managing risks and mitigating potential misuse, will have a competitive advantage over those who ignore or outright reject the widespread adoption of advancing technologies. However, adapting to new technologies can be challenging for the academic sector, which is often encumbered by outdated conventional wisdom and regulatory constraints.
Lawyers and law schools, in particular, are notoriously slow to adapt to new technologies because of their value in weighing evidence before deciding. Change can be disruptive and can have unintended unforeseen consequences and be unfair, especially for those who are unable to adapt or who relied on the status quo.
However, despite the challenges, we should continuously push ourselves to consider prudent change and pursue creative solutions to the age-old challenge of making the best use of new technology in business and at every level of education.
ChatGPT-type applications can be incorporated into lessons on how to write better than bots. There are unprogrammable elements of the human condition that are not done justice by algorithms. Flesh-and-blood writers in the end are irreplaceable because of humanity’s artful penchant for understanding, wisdom, judgment, purpose, abstraction, creativity, poetry, metaphor, unpredictability, love, friendship, compassion, empathy, joy, inspiration, dedication, sacrifice, surprise, terror, sadness, grief, physical and mental pain, laziness, complacency, negligence, stubbornness, irrationality, deceit, meanness, bias, hatred, deviance, antisocial behavior, illness, and death, as well as faith, hope, and charity.
Therefore, educators should focus on conversations on campuses about the importance of personal responsibility for intellectual integrity and understanding that academic fraud is both wrong and self-destructive. Besides, students and teachers will quickly learn that there are many ways to differentiate between human and bot writing.
Finally, it is important to acknowledge that technology-driven change is not just about artificial intelligence inventions like ChatGPT, but it is something that impacts every aspect of our lives. We should be open to all the exciting things new inventions can do to improve every aspect of our lives.
