“So what if CHat gpt wrote it?”

I asked my followers if they used AI. 41% of them said they use it A LOT, whilst 31% use it sometimes, and only 12% said they have never used it. Amongst the users of AI, 48% said they use it for academic purposes—from those who utilize it for studying to those who use it for research. The debate on whether we should or shouldn’t use AI in education is ongoing and, quite frankly, volatile, with some extremist perspectives.

Personally, I’ve sat in multiple meetings discussing the tolerance of AI for our students with the same volatility. Personally, it does not trigger me one bit when students use ChatGPT for their assignments. In fact, I encourage it! It’s a tool that exists—they should learn how to use it. What DOES trigger me? When they use it wrong and write things that have nothing to do with the topic. Ugh.

I want to show them how to properly use it, but as an educator, it feels wrong to blatantly acknowledge that they are using it. I feel this way mostly because of how wrong my colleagues make me feel about my liberality when it comes to AI, but this should question our goal with education. What are we really trying to achieve?

I personally want to help cultivate skills in students that will make them competitive individuals when they enter the workforce. If we don’t teach them to use AI, then they will go into the workforce with a serious disadvantage. No books or theories or equations they learned to use will help them here. (BTW: I teach college students)

I read a paper written by world-renowned scholars that summarizes all my thoughts. “So what if ChatGPT wrote it?” Multidisciplinary perspectives on opportunities, challenges, and implications of generative conversational AI for research, practice, and policy. The paper explores how generative AI tools like ChatGPT are reshaping research, education, policy, and professional practices. It provides a balanced view of opportunities and challenges posed by these technologies.

Insights I agree with from the paper:

1. AI & Human Collaboration offers new ways to approach creativity and problem-solving.
   What we lack as humans, AI can fill. Those who are so ANTI-AI probably believe AI can replace humans 100%. I don’t believe that. I believe God created us, and God’s creations cannot be replicated. There’s magic in human outputs that AI can never match. However, AI offers automation, accuracy, precision, and things that we as humans might not be able to produce all the time.

2. AI democratizes access to knowledge and streamlines workflows in education, management, and research.
   I think AI allows us to be on equal playing fields in terms of resources, and differentiation happens with our inner talents. Often, people who have more access to resources are more knowledgeable. AI gives us all the opportunity to access that once-hard-to-get knowledge.

How can anyone hate on that?

Well…

The use of AI does raise ethical concerns about misinformation, bias, and over-reliance on AI-generated content. Also, the privacy issues are kind of scary too.

BUT!!!

If we have better policies in place, permit its usage, and teach how to use it responsibly, I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

Do you have some serious thoughts on AI? Share them with me below!