There has been a very big discussion within our society in recent times about artificial intelligence. With new developments continuing to appear, and more people continuing to dislike the idea of ‘robots taking over’, there lies a big debate for our society. Artificial intelligence, also known as ‘AI’, is intelligence created by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by non-human animals or by humans. Some artificial intelligence can be anything from web search systems, Alexa’s you might have sitting at home, recommendation systems (used by YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix) and more.
However, things are starting to become a lot more advanced and ‘scary’ for our nation, such as self-driving cars, generative tools (ChatGPT), automated decision making and more. These are all things that put the doubt in our minds that we could eventually lose our jobs to these robot-like computer systems and how it is going to shape our future of work. Systems are starting to be created where you no longer need humans to work in a factory or become teachers because chatbots hold more information that humanly possible. In fact, artificial intelligence could displace roughly 15% of workers, or 400 million people, worldwide between 2016 and 2030, according to a McKinsey study.
I have also come to realise that there still isn’t full security over how safe artificial intelligence actually is. I say this because Snapchat, a social media platform, have also introduced artificial intelligence in their app which allows users to ‘chat’ with their own personal chatbot. However, the response received from this new development has not been very positive, especially from parents. Snapchats aim is to deliver a tool to help or assist anyone with questions, pretty much about anything. This being said, there is a scary-like feeling about talking to something that seems so much like you’re talking to an actual human being.
In fact, many parents have taken to TikTok to express their concerns about whether or not their child is actually chatting to a robot or whether it is a scam. One in which told her followers to keep their kids safe and that snapchats new feature is a safety concern after she found messages of her thirteen-year-old daughter and her personal chatbot. The messages involved her asking the chatbot questions about where she lives in which they replied to her location through certain features of the app. The mother said that this is likely to cause a number of children significant amount of anxiety and it should be abolished off the app. But, parents are not just becoming more and more concerned about their children’s safety, but also about their education.
ChatGPT, for example, has created a lot of controversy since it’s come abouts. It is a platform that enables you to have human-like conversations and much more as it is a natural language processing tool driven by AI technology. The language model is created to answer questions and assist you with tasks, such as composing emails, essays, and code. Of course, this has striked concerns within education. ChatGPT was created by OpenAI, an AI and research company which launched it in November 2022. Since then, it has become an extremely talked about piece of technology. Considering that anyone with access to some form of technology such as a phone or laptop, can use this platform to write up their homework or even university assignment, without really reading it at all, shows that we are in a crisis of worry and change.
What specifically needs to be discussed is that of course, artificial intelligence is seen to be the best thing to have ever been developed because of things such as printers and web searches, etc. And that these types of advancement we had were beneficial for schools as they are to assist teachers very well and create an easier way to learn. However, the question is whether we have now overstepped a boundary that could end up no longer accompanying teaching but completely taking over?
ChatGPT is a perfect example of a fascinating invention that no doubly is very useful in workspaces and education as well as, of course, everyday life, but is it going to have a bad effect on us long term? In fact, top universities such as University of Cambridge and University of Oxford banned the use of ChatGPT for their students out of panic that it will be too easy to plagiarise. A spokesperson for the University of Cambridge said:
“Students must be the authors of their own work. Content produced by AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, does not represent the student’s own original work so would be considered a form of academic misconduct to be dealt with under the university’s disciplinary procedures.”
However, since then, University of Cambridge held a Q&A, on 5th April 2023, with two researchers from the Faculty of Education, Dr Vaughan Connolly and Steve Watson, to determine what we should think about ChatGPT and whether the current discussion we are having about it is correct. Steve Watson shared his opinion on where it should be banned or whether we should embrace it. He said:
“So far, it’s mostly been portrayed as a tool for content creation. In fact, generating content is probably its weakest function. Where it excels is at manipulating structure and form. Everyone seems to be worrying that ChatGPT can produce an essay or coursework that will pass exams, but what that means is that educators need to adapt and say, “OK, what can we do with that?”
When asked whether there are ways we should be restricting ChatGPT in education, Dr Vaughan Connolly again argued that there should be ways to adapt to this big change in education and we ultimately should be thinking positively about this new advancement. He said:
“There may be a place for this in legislation such as the Online Safety Bill, for example. Digital skills are part of the curriculum already, so the Government should be considering how to ensure that schools teach students to be safe and effective critical users of this technology – just as they are already supported to stay safe online.”
So, top educators are saying that artificial intelligence is something the nation should embrace and work around in situations involving education. Personally, I think we live in a society that is developing exceptionally fast with new technologies being created almost every year, therefore, this evidently will be something that we will have to get used to once we are over this initial adjustment. Do you agree with these new developments?