Chat Al is becoming an Issue

Interface for OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the most common chat AI tool. Sanket Mishra | Pexels

Originally popularized by Sam Alman, the CEO of ChatAI, ChatGPT risks being used too much as a generative tool, for not just creating ideas, but to the point of replacing individual work.

Saddleback student Melissa Mack feels that Chat Al leads people to rely on it “rather than put the effort in for themselves.” 

“As a result, they don’t really understand what they are supposed to be learning,” Mack said.

Mack, however, also recognizes that it “can be a useful tool that can help clarify topics that are difficult to understand as a supporting tool for learning the material.” She feels that “the problem comes from them relying on it completely to do all the work for them instead of a tool used in moderation to support their learning.”

While Al might have been originally developed to help and aid people in understanding concepts, people are now exploiting it. Teachers on the other hand, according to neaToday,  “fear the program threatens academic integrity.” This is very valid in that Chat Al can easily be used as a tool to fake their answers. 

Mack isn’t the only one concerned with AI. Selena Gomez, in response to an Instagram post of an AI replication of her vocals on The Weekend’s song “Starboy,” commented with “Scary.” 

The vocals are eerily similar to Gomez’s, and to Gomez, this is not okay.

Mack and Gomez make some good points. ChatGPT might become a bigger problem, taking away all creativity and originality.

Teachers further describe their own frustrations with Chat GBT in an article published by El Pais.

Amy Clukey, who teaches at the University of Louisville states, “I’m no longer a teacher. I’m just a human plagiarism detector.”

Victoria Livingstone, a former professor, also speaks of “students who have developed sophisticated queries and methodology to avoid ever having to write a single paragraph.”

The teachers here are saying similar things. They feel as if the students are taking shortcuts, and not just shortcuts to writing, but rather shortcuts to the whole learning process. They further feel frustrated with the amount of time they have to spend going over the essays when the students did not originally begin to bother to engage at all.

A media studies college level professor reported the following to Buzzfeed:

“I asked a pretty simple question in a quiz: ‘Give an example of remediation,’ ” they said. “The response I got from a student using AI was about removing chemicals from soil via the process of remediation.” 

Another source describes that her husband is a history teacher, and his experiences teaching history with the use of AI:  

“My husband teaches history,” she said, “and he literally got an assignment that began. ‘As an AI, I cannot give an opinion.”

Chat AI may have some potential uses in generating ideas, but it is too often used to substitute actual work and original thinking. Especially in classes which require writing, this poses a threat to the ability for students to learn.

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