In-Depth: The Era of Artificial Intelligence

It was the day of his language arts essay deadline, and a sophomore, who asked to remain anonymous due to potential disciplinary consequences, only had a blank document to submit.

ChatGPT, write an essay about your journey as a researcher using hero archetypes.

Within seconds of receiving the prompt, ChatGPT generated an essay tailored to the inserted prompt and minutes later, he turned in the essay. 

“I just wanted to try the software out, but it didn’t really fit the prompt correctly. I got a pretty bad grade,” Smith said.

ChatGPT, launched in November by the company OpenAI, is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that interacts with users in a conversational manner. This nature allows users to ask questions and receive answers or insert a prompt and obtain a detailed response. 

The emergence of ChatGPT demonstrates a larger rise in AI. AI is expected to infiltrate daily life by 2025, play a greater role in certain jobs and impact human intelligence, according to Forbes. 

IMPACT AT MHS

Junior Abhiram Permareddy first learned of ChatGPT when he was exploring the artificial intelligence with his friends. While he has not used the software on school work, his friends have tested ChatGPT’s use on a couple homework assignments.

“It was really interesting to see how well it can just do it right when you ask it a question,” Permareddy said.

As a student interested in computer science, Permareddy said this advanced technology is exciting.

“It’s interesting how schools are going to adapt and how this technology will change the future,” Permareddy said. 

Rob Durham, language arts teacher, said he views ChatGPT as the equivalent of an English calculator.

“It has the chance to be as influential as the internet itself,” Durham said.

Within the classroom, Durham said grading writing generated by ChatGPT is often easier because there are fewer silly mistakes. However, the assignments are usually just as good as what the student can write.

Because of students using ChatGPT, Durham said he is moving toward more personal-styled writing for his assignments, such as poems about life. This teaching technique makes recognizing the use of AI on assignments easier. 

“I think it’ll be a helpful tool, but as far as academia, that’s yet to be seen,” Durham said. 

As a former language arts teacher, Dr. Richard Regina, senior principal, said anytime someone uses external assistance to create an entire assignment, they end up hurting themselves.

“They’re also really cheating themselves because they’re not preparing themselves for the future by having a computer or artificial intelligence write their document for them,” Dr. Regina said.

Dr. Regina said writing papers or essays is about the process, not the final product. 

“I think it’s part of our job to make sure that we can encourage students not to rely on this but to rely on the knowledge they have,” Dr. Regina said.

A student who uses ChatGPT is copying an entire assignment, so the student will receive a zero on the assignment. Moving forward, behavioral consequences such as ISS could be assigned.

“Taking time to work through the writing process is an important life skill that’s going to benefit you later on in life,” Dr. Regina said.  

COLLEGIATE PERSPECTIVE

While grading essays for his world religions course, Dr. Antony Aumann, professor of philosophy at Northern Michigan University, stumbled upon an essay that seemed to be a red flag. The student’s submission was far beyond his expectations for his students. 

To test his suspicions, Dr. Aumann pasted the essay into ChatGPT and asked the AI ‘Hey, did you write this?’ The chat responded with a 99.9% chance. 

“There’s no getting around it,” Dr. Aumann said. “There’s no way to prevent people from using it.”

Colleges and universities are handling ChatGPT in different ways. Some professors are using AI detection software, which is prone to false positives and negatives, Dr. Aumann said.

“I think that the joy of writing is something the chat cannot take away from us,” Dr. Aumann said. 

Alternatively, some universities are starting to move to oral exams, but this approach doesn’t work with larger classes, Dr. Aumann said. Also, the exams may not be an accurate representation of a student’s knowledge due to external influences such as fear of public speaking.

Rather than “play cop,” Dr. Aumann said he decided to integrate ChatGPT into the course curriculum. 

“Students are already upset that there’s a big gap between school and the real world, so if you say ‘hey, there’s this really cool thing, but we’re not going to teach you how to use it,’ that’s just going to make students feel like that gap is even wider,” Dr. Aumann said.

Dr. Aumann uses ChatGPT in the classroom in different ways, either as a discussion partner or editor for rough drafts.

Dr. Aumann said despite the emergence of AI like ChatGPT, there is still a crucial role for society to develop its own critical thinking through human intelligence.

“You can use the chat for good or you can use the chat for evil,” Dr. Aumann said. “The choice is really yours. I would encourage you to choose wisely.”

REAL-WORLD APPLICATION

Jason Zhao, junior, is an aspiring coder and intends to pursue a career in programming. 

“Right now a lot of people in the programming industry are using ChatGPT to its full potential by asking questions to find help with any programming problems,” Zhao said.

Zhao said ChatGPT is like StackOverflow, a question-and-answer website for programming professionals and enthusiasts. 

Zhao said one issue programmers run into with ChatGPT is not knowing what to ask and how to ask it.

“A lot of the time, I see programmers spending less time looking for the code on StackOverflow and spending way more time on ChatGPT asking questions,” Zhao said.

Unlike Zhao, Vitaly Tyulyayev, owner of ActiveTick, a software data company, said AI is a great help for him and his company’s efficiency.

“I’ve been using ChatGPT to generate a specific type of code. Rather than spending 10-15 minutes typing it myself, I can get it in 10 seconds and copy and paste it into my code,” Tyulyayev said.

ActiveTick is a company that offers stock and market data and quotes to companies that use Tyulyayev’s code for their products. 

While it does help Tyulyayev with his efficiency, he does note that AI will cause problems with white-collar workers trying to get jobs. He also said it prevents aspiring programmers from getting more experience.

“It’s a very disruptive technology for industries that require higher-level skills. People getting into programming can’t find jobs. If it can do the job of a junior programmer, then there won’t be a demand for them,” Tyulyayev said.