By now you’ve probably heard of ChatGPT, a powerful new artificial intelligence chatbot released to the public late last year that can craft jokes and working computer code, guess at medical diagnoses, and create text-based Harry Potter games.
And, yes, it can also write essays and solve problem sets, a fact that has “sent many educators into a panic,” notes Kevin Rose, a Times Tech columnist. Some school districts have already banned this new technology; others are attempting to teach students how to use it responsibly.
We invited teenagers to read Mr. Rose’s column and then tell us how they thought schools should respond to ChatGPT. Many came to the conclusion that the chatbot was a mighty, if at times unreliable, tool. Some worried that ChatGPT would rob them of their motivation, creativity and critical thinking; others that it would lead to widespread cheating. But several teenagers argued that A.I am the future, and schools should embrace it rather than restrict it. At least one student thought all of this was an overreaction: “Everyone needs to chill out!” she wrote. “ChatGPT is certainly not the end of the world, nor the eradication of writing as a whole.”
Thank you to all those who weighed in this week, including students from Fort White High School in Fort White, Fla.; Hillsdale Central High School in Hillsdale, Ill.; Saint Peter High School in Saint Peter, Minn; and the Anglo-American School of Sofia in Sofia, Bulgaria.
And a reminder that teenagers anywhere in the world can join our Current Events Conversation any time they like by responding to our daily writing prompts. We publish a selection of comments each week.
Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.
ChatGPT is a powerful, if imperfect, tool.
My Nikon recommended using ChatGPT, so I gave it a try. It was very powerful (it can write a sonnet about admission to Harvard, which I requested for fun) but inaccurate. Sometimes, ChatGPT kept changing its answers when I asked it the same question over and over. Nevertheless, I have never used it to answer my schoolwork or write my essays (I like to write, so I do that myself)
— Sheena, Philippines I have never used ChatGPT, but I have used similar chatbots purely for exploration. When I used these chatbots, I came to the conclusion that they aren’t very good at writing papers for the fact that they are very brief and often lack the level of knowledge required to write a paper on a certain topic. When you type in a prompt, they just use very brief, filler words to write your response rather than actually use educated terms. I think the concept is decent, but it needs to be very much advanced upon before it can be used frequently.
— Will, Saint Peter High School, MN
Personally, yes, I used and experimented with ChatGPT, and it is extremely useful for assignments. Not just because it answers all of your questions that you ask, but it completely destroys the use of tutors. However, it should be noted that it can be used productively but unethically because it is easier to cheat and just copy whatever the AI is providing.
— Kaiden, VSN
ChatGPT is much less developed than the article here suggests. The AI uses language and sentence structure that a middle schooler would use. It could be a good inspiration tool for students who lack ideas for an essay, and it could also be used as a way to teach students the proper essay structure and many more key basic things.
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