Can ChatGPT Be Trusted as an Educational Resource?
ChatGPT has created a buzz in the educational community. As people are getting more curious about how to use ChatGPT, the debates on whether it is valuable and trustworthy as an educational resource have become widespread. The answer to this question is not so easy. Let’s dive deeper into it.
ChatGPT provides answers quickly, but they may not always be accurate. It can give you false or partially false information that can be misleading. People in artificial intelligence research call this an issue of “hallucinations”. This is a big problem for learners who are using the tool to learn and complete their educational projects and assignments.
Although many people have expressed amazement at the speed of ChatGPT’s replies, there is also a downside to it that we cannot ignore. When students are under the pressure of writing a paper and feel like they’ve hit a mental wall, they may be tempted to directly copy from ChatGPT instead of using it as a resource. This has prompted educators to consider redefining plagiarism to include forbidding the copying of artificial intelligence-provided material. However, teachers cannot determine how a student obtained the content that allowed them to copy from ChatGPT because no one can ask ChatGPT how it generated specific answers. Additionally, the tool often generates fake citations when users ask for resources.
Despite its benefits in terms of speed, ChatGPT has its fair share of challenges. One of the issues is that it can parrot harmful stereotypes to users. In an experiment when ChatGPT was asked to tell a story about a boy and a girl choosing their careers, the girl in the story doubted she could handle all the technicalities and numbers in the engineering program, while the boy loved working with machines and gadgets. While a ChatGPT conversation may not be the deciding factor that makes someone choose a career path, it can still express outdated gender stereotypes and negatively influence students.
Despite the concerns about ChatGPT, it still has some valid use cases. Students can use the tool to brainstorm topics. For example, they can ask questions like “What are the top five cybersecurity risks for businesses?” and use ChatGPT's response to create an outline for their essays. The tool can also generate writing prompts to help students keep their writing skills sharp and reduce delays when they need to produce content but don’t know where to start. Additionally, teachers can use ChatGPT to plan generic experiments and assist with administrative tasks such as writing letters to parents and creating course syllabi, giving them more time to devote to teaching.
These examples show that ChatGPT has some valid use cases, but there are also very concerning examples of how people could misuse or get led astray by the tool. It is important to keep these realities in mind whether you’re a student, teacher, or just interested in artificial intelligence.
