A new artificial intelligence tool has the attention of educators, but leaders at UTC want to harness the technology, not ban it.
It's called CHAT GPT and while many see it as a new learning tool, others say it's a recipe for cheating.
"It's designed to operate like a chat conversation. You put in your question, 'write me an essay, comparing William Faulkner's writing to F Scott Fitzgerald's writing', and it's gonna do a decent job," says Dr. Victoria Bryan, the Director of Walker Center for Teaching and Learning. "Now, the sources that it uses for peer-reviewed research are most likely going to be completely fabricated. In a lot of cases, the information that you're getting is just sentence-level information, not going to be accurate, but it's going to sound like human text. And that's really what CHAT GPT itself is invested in."
All it takes is a couple of clicks to get your college essay written for you.
Some UTC students say it's another cheating tool.
"It's just another form of cheating," says student Leonardo Vega.
We asked CHAT GPT to write a news story about the software in schools. Here's what it came up with:
"Today, we bring you an interesting story from the education sector. As colleges and universities continue to adapt to the digital age, they are exploring innovative ways to enhance learning experiences for students. And one of the latest additions to the classroom is the use of Chat GPT.
Chat GPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI, has been making headlines lately for its ability to generate human-like responses to text inputs. And now, some colleges are using this technology in their classrooms to aid in student learning.
According to professors, Chat GPT can be used to facilitate discussions, provide real-time feedback, and even answer questions. This AI-powered assistant is not meant to replace human instructors, but rather to complement their teaching methods and enhance the overall learning experience for students.
Some students have reported that Chat GPT is a helpful tool that has allowed them to gain a better understanding of the subject matter. Others have expressed concern that the technology could take away from human interaction and personalized feedback.
While Chat GPT is still a new addition to the classroom, it will be interesting to see how it develops in the future and how it will impact the education sector as a whole."
"If they choose to, like ban it, so be it," says UTC student Seth Colling.
"It can definitely become more of a problem than it already is," says Vega.
Colleges like UTC are debating what policies should be put in place for students using CHAT GPT for academic work.
"If I'm teaching a freshman-level writing class, I could see you wanting to bring an assignment into the classroom. Saying, 'Okay, everybody gets onto CHAT GBT, and putting in the prompt for this essay. Let's talk about the results you get. How would you grade this based on what you've seen from my instruction this semester? What information is inaccurate? How does your essay compare with the person next to you? Because it's not going to be the same essay," says Dr. Bryan.
Dr. Bryan has been working with UTC faculty on adjusting to this new technology. Instead of banning the software, they're embracing it.
"What we found in this conversation, is that there are faculty who are like, 'I haven't touched it,' 'I don't want to even open the door.' And then we have faculty across campus and other disciplines who are actively working on AI-related technology," says Dr. Bryan. "Some faculty are saying, 'This is exciting, why would we close this off to students?' A lot of it comes down to how we assess student learning in different disciplines. So in a program like English, political science or sociology, where it's hard to grade an essay. But it is a really good way to see if students are actually retaining and synthesizing and critically thinking about the information that you're covering in that particular course."
It's not like this opens up cheating for the first time. I think that the fear is more about it making cheating more accessible and maybe grayer for students who are overwhelmed," says Dr. Bryan.
But like anything on the internet, experts say it's important to remember not everything on the web is 100 percent reliable.
The developers of Chat GPT are upfront there is a risk of misinformation or harmful content being shared.
And says the responses also have proven to be relatively formulaic. Meaning they fail to match a student's writing style and they often have detectable tendencies.