Humans must first think for ChatGPT to work.

The introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022 has seen a flurry of activity accompanied by doomsday predictions for the future of humanity. ChatGPT has resulted in a remarkable outpouring of predictions of job losses, replacement of teachers, and hyper-accelerated automation. It is an online, open-source application that ‘writes’ text, codes, formulae, and the like that ‘sound’ human-like. It is one of the most downloaded and used applications with more than 100 million users, including students, professionals using it for computer programming coding, and researchers using it to generate survey questions.

ChatGPT and other applications, such as Google’s Bard, are programmed with algorithms which are a set of rules to process information or data. However, we need to be clear about two things. First, AI is not ‘thinking’. It is just reproducing text based on pre-existing information that is provided by humans, which means you cannot trust the information generated unless an established authority authenticates it. It just mimics what has been programmed into it. AI can have profound effects on the quality of education at the school and higher education levels. While students across the world are using AI, it is important to raise awareness of the benefits and dangers of its use.

Students and researchers use AI in their analysis to help them form sound arguments and conclusions from data. The last human chess champion, Gary Kasparov, is instructive in this area. He helped IBM develop ‘Deep Blue’, a chess programme that ultimately defeated him. He asserts that we must work with AI and machine learning in a collaborative manner – noting that human creativity can flourish with the new technology.

Humans, on much less information, with their powers of imagination, inference, moral reasoning, and experiential learning are far more creative, intuitive, and we might even say, wise. Holistically, focusing on the core goal of education, we can decide whether or not AI can be used and raise awareness among students on the same. The question that we need to ask ourselves is how do we use AI to enhance students’ skills such as knowledge co-creation, logical reasoning, decision-making, intuition, moral reasoning, and leadership?

Using AI tools without thinking or understanding their use will lead to further ratification of education without any beneficial outcomes. We need to move from teaching descriptive writing to teaching narrative writing rich in meaning – which is situated in the context, engages new processes of learning, and new processes of discovery. These technologies are now here with us, and we should work to use them for good to avoid giving AI tools the power and run the risk of losing the beauty of individuality in human work and writing.

Source: Business Daily, 5th June 2023.

Credits/Authors: @Anil Khamis and Zeenar Salim, Ph.D. (Faculty Members at Aga Khan University and Syracuse University. Opinions expressed are personal.