A critical evaluation of the use of ChatGPT in a Higher Education context. Presenter: Kedibone Boka 08 March 2023 Presentation outline • Introduction • Understanding ChatGPT • ChatGPT’s advantages in Higher Education context • Limitations of ChatGPT • Implications for Higher Education • Conclusion Introduction • Artificial intelligence (AI) dominates the 21st century technology, and it is an endeavour to make our world and planet a better and easier place to live in. • The appearance of AI programmes that can produce texts that could seemingly be written by a human has caused quite a stir, particularly in the education community. However, the task assigned to me is “Critically evaluate the use of the AI programme, ChatGpt, in a Higher Education context” I will therefore confine my presentation to that. What is ChatGPT? ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot based on artificial intelligence and machine learning that specialises in conversation with a human user. It is an open-source language model developed by OpenAI. It’s based on transformer architecture and was trained on a diverse range of internet text, including websites, books, and social media platforms. The model has been fine-tuned to perform well in a variety of natural language processing tasks, such as answering questions, generating text, and translating between languages. Advantages in Higher Education context • Availability: ChatGPT is available 24/7, which means it can assist users at any time, regardless of their location. • Versatility: ChatGPT can understand and respond to a wide range of topics and questions, making it a versatile tool for a variety of applications. • Efficiency: ChatGPT can provide quick and efficient responses, which can save time and effort for both users and businesses. • Scalability: ChatGPT can handle a large volume of requests simultaneously, making it scalable and ideal for use in high-traffic environments. • Consistency: ChatGPT provides consistent responses, regardless of the number of requests it receives or the time of day. • Personalization: ChatGPT can learn from user interactions and tailor responses to their specific needs and preferences over time. Limitations • Contextual limitations: ChatGPT may struggle to understand certain contexts, such as sarcasm, humour, or cultural references, which can result in inappropriate or inaccurate responses. • Inability to reason: ChatGPT is not capable of reasoning and does not have common sense, which means it may provide responses that seem nonsensical or illogical. • Dependence on input quality: ChatGPT's responses are only as good as the input it receives, which means that if the user's query or the source of the information is inaccurate or incomplete, ChatGPT may provide an inappropriate or incomplete response. • Lack of emotional intelligence: ChatGPT does not have emotions and cannot understand or empathize with human emotions, which means it may provide responses that are insensitive or inappropriate. Limitations • Lack of creativity: ChatGPT is not capable of creating new ideas or concepts, which means it may struggle to respond to complex or nuanced questions that require creative thinking. • Biased responses: ChatGPT's responses are based on the data it has been trained on, which means it may inadvertently provide biased responses based on societal or cultural biases present in the training data. • In summary, ChatGPT is simply trained to generate words based on a given input...it does not have the ability to truly comprehend the meaning behind those words. This means that any responses it generates are likely to be shallow and lacking in depth and insight Implications for Higher Education environment • Detecting work generated by the AI is nearly impossible, and even if you, the marker or instructor, suspected something, there is no way to prove it. There are no viable countermeasures available.( plagiarism and academic integrity) • ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can provide students with instant access to information and enhance their learning experience in Higher Education. • ChatGPT has the potential to level the playing field for students from different backgrounds and make education more accessible to a wider range of students. • ChatGPT can assist educators in automating routine tasks, allowing them to focus more on providing personalized instruction and feedback to their students. Implications for Higher Education • However, there are concerns that students may become overly reliant on ChatGPT, potentially hindering their development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. • There is also a risk of ChatGPT perpetuating bias and reinforcing existing inequalities, which educators must be mindful of when using it in the classroom. • The impact of ChatGPT on Higher Education will depend on how it is implemented and integrated into the curriculum and learning experience. • Lastly, ChatGPT is a quickly evolving tool and as such HE institutions should place some limits to its use. Conclusion It is true that ChatGPT, and such similar technological tools are prevalent . Academics in higher education and training need to develop institution- based policies to incorporate it into the teaching and learning programmes, ChatGPT could be a useful tool to complement curriculum design and assessment provided the user has been well trained in this AI model. It needs to be borne in mind that technology change at a fast pace and that there are currently innovations which endeavours to compete with chatGPT in scalability and prowess. Further, there are ethical considerations which Higher Education has to grapple with such as authorship, cheating and concomitant academic integrity issues. References
