A Concerned Parent’s Guide to “Essay-Killing” ChatGPT: What is it, and Is It Really the End of Student Essays?
If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT, then you may have just been too embarrassed to ask what it is. Instead of pointing you to a web page when you ask it something, it actually answers your query or order itself in simple English that is conversational in tone. It can even respond with tables or bullet points, depending on your preferences.
Essentially, it is like a supercomputer that has downloaded most of the information on the internet and can answer queries in the same way a normal person would. With this kind of technology at disposal, it’s not hard to see why teachers would be concerned. ChatGPT (at chat.openai.com) is freely available to anyone, meaning that people can use it to generate essays to meet their needs.
And it’s not just academic essays that are affected by this technology. Research has shown that ChatGPT can pass senior exams in certain subjects, such as history. It has the potential to produce output that is of the same sophisticated level written by a human.
However, there is already technology out there to help detect plagiarism generated by ChatGPT. These algorithms are capable of detecting the construction of language and syntax used by the AI, giving teachers the upper hand and making it less likely that student essays will be completely replaced.
What’s more, having self-aware machines is not yet a reality. Even Elon Musk, who has been vocal about the dangers of an AI apocalypse, is calling for the research in AI to be frozen for six months. ChatGPT is an impressive feat of technology, and a step forward in computer intelligence. But it’s too soon to know if it really is the end of student essays or will it even mean the end of jobs and in extreme cases, the risk of AI wiping out humanity.
OpenAI is a technology company based in San Francisco, California and is an artificial intelligence research laboratory founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman. OpenAI’s mission is to develop and promote advanced artificial general intelligence (AGI) safely and responsibly. The company has been praised by many companies in the AI sector and is responsible for creating projects such as GPT-3 and the OpenAI gym. It has also been credited with the development of robotics, computer vision and natural language processing.
Elon Musk is the founder of SpaceX, Tesla Inc., and the Boring Company. He is a South African-born Canadian-American who launched a number of successful tech companies over the past decade. He has earned immense respect for his innovative and ambitious projects such as launching the world’s first space-faring missions, developing autonomous automobiles and pioneering underground transportation systems. Musk is also notably outspoken, often publicly advocating for responsible AI research and responsible levels of investment in AI, robotics and nanotechnology.
