For Students, ChatGPT Is Worse Than the Calculator
ChatGPT and the mentally deteriorated culture on the horizon.
There has always been trepidation when new technologies emerge. On the one hand, these technologies simplify processes and condense the time it takes to produce work. For the most part, they are positive tools. In learning, this is no different. I remember growing up before the age of scientific calculators, where calculators themselves (even my Texas Instruments analog calculator) were frowned upon because they would remove the processes of mathematic problem-solving. This is a fair criticism when it comes to learning, but after the skill has been learned, the tool becomes incredibly productive wherever mathematics is needed.
By now, we all know about AI tools and ChatGPT. If you don’t, I won’t belabor a history of it (I’m not publishing for keywords and views, I’m just venting). These AI tools can produce essays in response to prompted questions or directions. Students even submit these essays (some students even submit the same formatting from their copy and paste job from the response they were able to generate… not too different from when they would copy and paste a Wikipedia article). Apart from the cheating aspect of using an AI tool to write an essay, we’re at a point where the AI tools are often more wrong than Wikipedia.
ChatGPT produces answer to queries that look excellent and informed. They aren’t always so. The holes in the reasoning are frequently quite obvious. Yet, students are resorting to their use—for reasons that I also hope are obvious.
AI tools are pretty easy to spot right now, but AI will continue to improve. I’m not completely anti-AI, I’m anti-atrophy. I’d love an age where we have computers like Majel Barett’s voice on the Enterprise. Again, there is nothing wrong with a calculator in and of itself. Same with AI. Until we improve it, our problem will remain; namely, that ChatGPT right now is leading to consequences where its users are atrophying their critical thinking, research, analysis, and synthesis skills.
Students need to be aware, and those of us in academia need to find ways to outwit the bots in order to cultivate mental fortitude in our students. The easy alternative is a frightening encounter that Mike Judge first introduced us to in the movie, Idiocracy.
I’m a little bummed reading some of the work turned in to be this semester. Trying to stay hopeful. What advice to you have for this predicament?