Universities across the world are struggling to find a suitable balance in the use of the chatbot software ChatGPT, which has seen a surge in popularity over the last few years. Developed by US-based startup OpenAI, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) program capable of natural-sounding conversations, as well as creating structured text, translating, changing, and summarizing sentences and writing computer code. Given its ability to offer help to students when preparing academic papers, ChatGPT is a potential source of cheating for students looking for a shortcut.
Kyoto University provost Nagahiro Minato discussed the issue of using AI-generated texts in his speech at the school’s entrance ceremony in April, stressing that AI cannot properly cite sources to back up its arguments and can produce incorrect information. In response, the board director and vice president of the University of Tokyo, Kunihiro Ota, released a document of the university’s views on the use of such generative AI on 3 April, affirming that it is expected that students write their own reports without the use of AI.
Meanwhile, Sophia University issued a notice for its teaching staff and students about the use of AI in writing reports or theses, claiming that AI-generated reports will not be accepted, though permission from teaching staff may be given for such purposes as instructed.
In Step with the changing times, universities such as the University of Tokyo are actively looking for creative ways to use generative AI in their courses. The school has already started discussions on how to approach the technology, and has come to the conclusion that with proper guidance, students can still use ChatGPT and similar AI services in an educationally beneficial way. Associate professor of educational technology at the University of Tokyo, Lui Yoshida, stated that university teaching staff now need to be creative in designing assignments as they can’t escape from the changes of modern times.
Similarly, Tohoku University also published instructions for their teaching staff on how to deal with generative AI and Showa Women’s University advised their students to compose reports at exam venues if they wanted to do so without AI. Keio University has also taken steps to make sure that students are not cheating by introducing oral exams for some of their university seminars and scrapping programming assignments due to the software’s ability to create such code.
OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, also released their latest version GPT-4 on a subscription basis in March, further emphasizing the need for universities to find a suitable balance for the use of such artificial intelligence services. Thus, universities hope to achieve the difficult feat of striking a balance between suspiciously easy and efficient work versus the value of teaching and learning process gained from traditional academic writing.
