NYC EDUCATION DEPARTMENT BLOCKS USE OF THE CHATGPT AMID CHEATING WORRIES

Fri 06 January 2023:

Access to ChatGPT, a Microsoft’s OpenAI chatbot powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that has gained popularity for providing text responses that resemble those of real people, has been restricted in public schools in New York City.

According to Chalkbeat, New York City students and teachers can no longer access ChatGPT on education department devices or internet networks, agency officials confirmed.

“Due to concerns about negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content, access to ChatGPT is restricted on New York City Public Schools’ networks and devices,” said education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle. “While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success.”

Individual schools can still request access to the site if they’re planning to study the technology behind the chatbot, a department spokesperson said.

An OpenAI spokesperson said the company is developing “mitigations” to help anyone spot text generated by ChatGPT.

“We made ChatGPT available as a research preview to learn from real-world use, which we believe is a critical part of developing and deploying capable, safe AI systems. We are constantly incorporating feedback and lessons learned,” said the spokesperson.

The chatbot has sparked fears among some schools and educators that their writing assignments could soon become “obsolete” — and that the programme could encourage “cheating and plagiarism”.

One high school English teacher argued in The Atlantic that the chatbot spells the “end of high school English”.

The program, created by the organization OpenAI, uses machine learning to come up with its own custom-made responses to specific prompts. It can pull and compile historical facts, write in specific styles, and make convincing logical arguments — all with nearly perfect grammar (unless a user gives a prompt to add grammatical errors).

That’s posing some thorny questions for educators who rely on independent writing assignments to build and assess students’ understanding and critical thinking skills.

The creator of ChatGPT, OpenAI, is apparently seeking funding at a valuation of close to $30 billion.

Microsoft just paid $1 billion to acquire OpenAI and is now promoting ChatGPT applications for addressing real-life problems.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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