*Jynep Tupekchi is a professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and author of the book "Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Weakness of Networked Protests."
The philosopher Plato lamented the invention of the alphabet.
He was worried that the tradition of writing and writing based on memory might be threatened if he wrote letters.
In Plato's "Dialogues," he borrows the words of Thamus, king of the Egyptian gods, that because of this new technology - the alphabet - "learners will not exercise their memory and will cause amnesia to their souls," and those who use letters will "knowledge missing reality." I will show off, and it will seem like I know everything, but in reality I will know nothing."
If Plato were alive today, would he have said something similar about ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a conversational artificial intelligence program recently launched by OpenAI.
Anything related to artificial intelligence is getting too much attention these days, but ChatGPT is definitely a program worth noting.
Even if you ask open-ended questions that are not simple, you have made significant progress in that you answer at the level of an essay written by a high school student.
The place where the more interesting and problematic aspects of ChatGPT will stand out will be the classroom of a high school or university.
Asking students to write essays (of course there are parents who proudly post their children's excellent grades on the refrigerator) is not because the results are of great value.
This is because the process of writing an essay teaches you very important skills: how to research a topic, judge multiple arguments, and synthesize knowledge to write in a clear, coherent, and persuasive way.
Advances in artificial intelligence will make these skills even more important.
I asked ChatGPT questions on various topics, such as the ethical issues of journalists who use data obtained through hacking for coverage, the need for cryptocurrency regulation, and the possibility of a retreat in American democracy.
It was also interactive, so you could ask for more detailed answers or change the content.
However, when we added more tricky topics or complex concepts, ChatGPT gave very plausible but completely wrong answers.
ChatGPT developers also wrote in the notes in advance.
If you already know the answer or are not an expert in the field, you may fall for these high-quality intellectual scams.
As Plato predicted, "a display of knowledge in the absence of reality" will appear.
However, that does not mean that ChatGPT and similar tools cannot be useful in the educational field.
Schools already have experience dealing with the Internet.
The Internet is a repository of information, but it is also a repository of lies, misleading claims, and essay factories.
One of the ways to cope is to change the teaching method.
Instead of taking a class in the classroom and looking up relevant materials and writing an essay at home, now you can watch a recorded class at home, find the material, and then write the essay in the classroom, supervised by the teacher and collaborating with fellow students and teachers. .
It is an approach called flipping the classroom or flipped classroom.
In "The Flipped Classroom," students will not be using ChatGPT to churn out a finished essay.
Instead, you will use ChatGPT as a tool to create components for critically reviewed essays.
When students in an advanced math class solve complex equations, they are told to use a calculator to skip a tedious process they have already mastered.
Teachers may allow for some use of tools such as ChatGPT when examining material while assigning complex topics as homework.
Evaluating the accuracy and reliability of artificial intelligence-generated data and using it to write essays will be done during class under the guidance and guidance of teachers.
The goal is to write a more sophisticated and detailed argument.
For this class to be possible, the teacher must provide detailed feedback.
If sufficient resources are not provided equitably, introducing conversational AI into the “flipped classroom” will only add to inequality.
In a resource-poor school, students may turn in an AI-generated essay without even understanding what they wrote, let alone acquire the necessary skills.
This corresponds to Plato's "not the truth, but the appearance of truth".
Some schools may regard this as simply a matter of tracking down plagiarism and seek to expand their rigorous surveillance system.
During the pandemic, automated eye tracking systems or computer control technologies were introduced in the name of preventing cheating when writing test answers or essays.
The fruitless arms race against interactive artificial intelligence and automated plagiarism software could heat up, leading schools to step up punishment and surveillance of students.
In such a system, innocent victims will inevitably come out.
Then, trust in the education field may be damaged or the future of a promising student may be frustrated.
These student-hostile pedagogies teach students a hatred of control and may lead them to dream of subversion.
It would not be a picture that meets the purpose of education to make humans better.
While not all students may keep up, advanced AI will create demand for other advanced skills.
As Nobel laureate Herbert Simon said in 1971, the more overwhelming the information, the greater the value of attention.
In his words, "an abundance of information begets a poverty of attention."
Equally plausible, but the ability to distinguish the truth from a plausible but downright wrong answer will be invaluable.
Stack Overflow, a website where developers gather to exchange questions and answers about coding, has already banned answers made with ChatGPT.
Because there were so many sloppy answers that it was hard to pinpoint.
Then, should we not use ChatGPT at all?
At least ChatGPT will soon change the face of many jobs.
When faced with transformative technology, we must try to find ways to use it for the advancement of mankind.
Human development has been the goal of public education for at least the last 150 years.
There was a time when a high school diploma was enough to get a better job, but over the past few decades, wages for high school graduates have fallen significantly compared to those for college graduates, increasing inequality.
If artificial intelligence increases the value of education for some people, but reduces the quality of education for others, then human progress is far away.
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