Several large school districts, such as New York and Los Angeles, have blocked access to a new chatbot that uses artificial intelligence. A student has a new tool to help.
Michelle Martin, host:
ChatGPT is a research-based new AI technology that treats research papers or poems like a real human being. You can even train this bot to write the way you do. Some teachers are understandably concerned, but one graduate student has an idea of how to help. Janet Wujong Lee, from NPR’s education desk, has this report.
Janet Wojong Lee, The Internet: Teachers across the country don’t know what to do. Since ChatGPIT launched in November, many say they are concerned that this powerful technology could take over their students’ homework. Some school districts, including New York City and Los Angeles, have blocked access. But Edward Tian thinks that’s the wrong way to go.
Edward Tian: I’m not banned for these blankets on chatgpty usage because that doesn’t really do anything. Students can move around just as you can use ChatGPT on your Wi-Fi at home.
Li: Tian is a 22-year-old computer science student at Princeton University. A month after Chatgpty harassed the teachers, he made a bot to help them. It’s called GPTZero. You can copy and paste any text, and it will analyze every sentence, every word and evaluate how likely it is that it was written by a real person or a fake person.
Tian: And teachers, you know, like, wow, this essay is 100% ChatGPT-written, they can make their own decisions, or this essay, like, where it really uses ChatGPT to help influence the idea. That works. Teachers can make their own informed decisions.
Lee: Tian talks about what is written and not written by AI, down to the percentage of the essay, that it can help teachers who are afraid of this new technology to feel more responsible. There are other AI detection tools out there too. Tian wrote it as a summer vacation mood project. He shared it on Twitter and was surprised to quickly hear from many teachers and college officials who wanted to know more.
Tian: I met my own high school principal. My own high school English teacher, Ms. Stuka, reached out, and the admissions officers reached out, saying they were interested.
Li: Tian is now building a community of educators and students who want to learn what to do with AI in the classroom. He believes that AI can help teach and learn responsibly rather than tricking.
Tian: In charge means somewhere in the middle. Students don’t write any homework and it can’t be like they don’t do any homework. But it also can’t be, like, okay, we can’t fully use these new technologies and we’re just ignoring them. So it must be somewhere in the middle.
Li: Students need to learn how to use AI to their advantage, says Tian, because the technology is here to stay.
Janet Woojeong Lee, NPR News.
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