As artificial intelligence improves, so does concern: What it could mean for Wisconsin | WFRV Local 5 – Green Bay, Appleton
(WFRV) – Imagine you are a college student assigned to write an essay. Coming up with a thesis, finding evidence, and ultimately putting it all together is time consuming, but with the help of artificial intelligence services like ChatGPT, an essay could be written in seconds.
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence software that pulls information from every corner of the internet to give users the most accurate information possible. It also can generate original works of writing from essays to movie scripts.
ChatGPT is just one form of AI, but services like Google, Microsoft, and Snapchat have their versions too.
As you can imagine with any new technology, there are pros and cons that must be addressed. UWGB Provost Kate Burns explains how the university plans to tackle ChatGPT.
“We’ve been having monthly workshops so that faculty can better understand what does it mean? What does that look like within their classroom? We have policies already in terms of academic honesty within the classroom, when we see plagiarism, how we handle that, but we are really looking to see how can we use it as a tool?” Burns says.
Using it as a tool is Kristopher Purzycki, an assistant professor of English and Humanities at the university. As a part of his writing courses, Purzycki shows his students how ChatGPT can be used as a template to begin their essays.
Purzycki says, “It does provide a good foundation for writing structure. If we’re trying to have students write for example a cover letter, that shows off their personality, this is a piece of writing that completely erases that, so it does get them a sense of how they can personalize their writing.”
While AI may provide benefits in the classroom, it could also contribute to the spread of misinformation on a global scale.
Operations Management Professor at John Hopkins University Tinglong Dai says, “ChatGPT is just one of many generative AI technologies. Other technologies can produce videos, images, illustrations, or even send tweets, Facebook messages, automatically. This can easily become a threat to our democracy.”
He also says that people do not need to speak English to use AI technologies.
“We have a lot of concerns about rushing misinformation. Any country can unleash massive amounts of information with ChatGPT. They don’t have to be very good at English. All they need is to ask a question and ChatGPT really opens that language barrier and makes it insanely cheap to produce misinformation,” Dai explains.
Knowing the technology is far from perfect, and at times even dangerous, experts say that’s where our old reliable human brains come into play.
Dai says, “Eventually, we’ll have to turn to humans to solve the reliability issues and trust issues, the bias issue, all sorts of harmful misinformation.”
Purzycki also believes it is important to recognize this technology is not slowing down, so educators should learn to embrace it.
“I don’t think it’s worth our time an energy to try to stop it. I think it’s a great opportunity, but I do think we need to work through some of the big questions that we have.”
AI might not be something you can avoid, but just remember to verify everything you see and read.
*Disclaimer: this article was not written using ChatGPT or any other AI software.
