University leaders discuss concerns and benefits of Chat GPT

Education leaders says there are also concerns about how the technology could rob students of valuable learning skills

LEXINGTON, Ky (WTVQ)- The use of Chat GPT is raising some eyebrows at higher education institutions  about its use.

The artificial intelligence tool was launched in November. It’s owned by research company Open AI. In simple terms, it’s a bot that creates generated content.
You can ask it anything. And it can easily create a response.

“The interesting thing about this is it can respond to a prompt and mimic human intellect in ways that other technological advances cannot,” says Dr. Kevin Brown, the president of Asbury University.

The website can write poetry and produce music. It’s even aced exams.

“You could say write an essay, write a summary of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird”, you could say write it like a freshman in high school, write it like a five year old, write it like a graduate student, and so it would write at that level,” says Brown.

Now, schools and colleges across the country are talking about it and the possibility it could encourage cheating. Education leaders says there are also concerns about how the technology could rob students of valuable learning skills.

“We’re using writing in the classroom not just for students to show us what they know, but so that they can have the opportunity to learn in the first place and that writing itself is an activity of discovery,” says Dr. Trey Conatser, the director of University of Kentucky’s Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching.

At the University of Kentucky, staff are finding themselves learning more about artificial intelligence. Dr. Conatser works with instructors about curriculum developments. He says teachers are seeing more students use CHAT GPT. And while he says there’s a lot of speculation about how long it will be openly available to the public, it could be used to help classrooms going forward.

“O, the other hand, people are thinking a little more deeply about it and how it might be part of a longer narrative of different kind of digital aids that we have in writing and how that might be part of the future of how we think with writing and through writing,” says Conatser.

Conatser says instructors plan to use Chat GPT by asking students to critique the output from the site themselves. He says it will help students think about the kind of writing their supposed to do in class to see how it measures up to the writing style and structure they’re learning about.

Some universities are outright banning the technology.
At Asbury- Dr. Brown says there are conversations going on about artificial intelligence. They’re still trying to learn more before making any future decision about banning it or embracing it.