Educational Applications of the ChatGPT AI System

1. Introduction & Background:

• Emergence of AI in Education: The document highlights the significant development of AI technology in education over the past decade, noting its influence on educational environments and settings. “Over the past decade, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has experienced significant development across various fields of education. These technologies have been shown to directly or indirectly affect educational environments and shape educational settings.”
• Introduction of ChatGPT: In November 2022, ChatGPT, a chatbot based on OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model, was introduced. It quickly gained attention for its capabilities. “In November 2022, a new form of AI technology was introduced that has the potential to impact on social and education sciences. This brand-new AI technology is a chatbot named ChatGPT.”
• ChatGPT’s Capabilities: The AI possesses broad capabilities, including abstracting, paraphrasing, translating, editing, generating complex answers, and solving math problems. “ChatGPT has been revealed to have vast capability in areas such as abstracting, paraphrasing, translation, editing, generating high-level answers to complex questions, and solving mathematical problems.”
• Reactions to ChatGPT: Its release prompted both excitement and concern within academia and among the general public about its potential impact on education. “Even now, just months after its release, those working in universities are admitting to be scared and/or amazed at the potential and impact of ChatGPT on the educational sector, and are trying to prepare or take measures against its usage or misuse.”

2. Literature Review & Development of AI:

• Historical Context of AI: The origins of AI are traced back to philosophers’ attempts to understand human thinking as mechanical symbol manipulation, leading to the development of programmable digital computers in the 1940s.
• Early AI Research: AI research was established in 1956, with researchers initially believing that a human-level intelligent machine would exist within a generation. However, this proved more complex, and early funding was withdrawn due to criticism.
• Advancements in AI Education Platforms: The document briefly mentions AI-based education platforms, such as ALEKS, Brainly, and Cognii, that offer personalized learning and tutoring, demonstrating a wider context of AI’s increasing role in education. “These AI programs have revolutionized the education sector, paving the way for more effective and tailored learning experiences” (referencing Luckin et al., 2016).
• ChatGPT’s Technical Development: ChatGPT is built upon the GPT-3.5 language model, using supervised and reinforcement learning techniques for advanced responses. This includes learning from human feedback and optimizing through multiple iterations of Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO). “This AI technology offers high-tech contributions to human feedback, which can improve user performance through the provision of conversational examples in supervised learning and in ranking its responses in reinforcement learning.”

3. ChatGPT’s Functionality and Initial Impact:

• Versatile Abilities: ChatGPT possesses diverse skills such as mimicking human conversation, writing code, creating music lyrics, answering test questions, and even playing games. “The ChatGPT program offers versatile abilities such as being able to mimic human conversation, the writing and debugging of computer programs, creating lyrics for music, answering test questions, writing poetry and other lyrics, as well as game playing.”
• Limitations: The system has limitations, including the potential for incorrect answers, limited knowledge beyond 2021, algorithmic bias, and a preference for longer answers. “However, it does have its limitations, such as producing incorrect answers and having limited knowledge of events beyond 2021. It has also been found to have an algorithmic bias in its training data and a preference for longer answers from human reviewers.”
• Initial Reactions: The release of ChatGPT triggered strong reactions, being described as “the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the public,” with praise for its detailed, human-like text generation. “Roose (2022) referred to ChatGPT as “the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the public,” whilst Lock (2022) praised the chatbot for its ability to produce “detailed” and “human-like” text.” The Atlantic Magazine recognized its impact, stating that it could significantly impact upon the way in which we work, think, and understand human creativity (Thompson, 2022).
• Concerns about Plagiarism: The ability to generate human-like text also raised concerns about students passing off AI-generated work as their own, sparking debates about the ethical use of such tools. “This itself has created another dilemma and sparked debates on whether or not ChatGPT and other chatbots in the future can or should be used for the purposes of creating text.”

4. Addressing Academic Plagiarism & Research Methodology

• Detection Tools: A tool called “GPTZero” was developed to detect AI-generated content. “To address the potential issue of academic plagiarism facilitated by AI writing tools like ChatGPT, Tian, a Princeton University student, developed a program called “GPTZero” to determine the proportion of AI-generated text in any given piece of writing.”
• Institutional Restrictions: Some institutions, like the New York City Department of Education, have taken preventative steps by restricting access to ChatGPT on their networks.
• Systematic Review Approach: The study utilized a systematic literature review to investigate the potential effects of ChatGPT in education. This method involves minimizing bias by identifying, appraising, and synthesizing all relevant studies on the topic. “The systematic review undertaken in the current study investigated the consequences and ramifications of incorporating ChatGPT into educational environments, with a focus on the potentially favorable and adverse effects that ChatGPT could cause in education.”
• Research Questions: The review focuses on literature related to ChatGPT’s integration into educational settings, its ethical implications, and challenges arising from its use.
• Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria: The review process included criteria to ensure the relevance and quality of the selected research articles. They focused on research published between December 2022 and February 15, 2023, in English, related to the field of education and using recognized methodologies.

5. Research Findings: Integration of ChatGPT:

• Key Applications: The findings are categorized into two areas: the integration of ChatGPT into daily and academic life, and the potential problems. The research reviewed identified a variety of integration topics, including:
• Abstracting: ChatGPT’s summarization capabilities, which can scan large volumes of data quickly, are seen as beneficial. “The ChatGPT program is considered a serious summarization tool that can instantly scan 650 GB of written data.”
• Literature Review: The tool’s ability to quickly scan and summarize literature resources is noted as a significant development.
• Generating Literature: ChatGPT’s advanced text generation skills, including the creation of complex texts, raise concerns about the future of academic writing.
• Paraphrasing: The ability of the chatbot to paraphrase with no risk of plagiarism is highlighted. “Since there is no risk of plagiarism in the generated texts, this feature is considered by some to be a feared area of application for ChatGPT”.
• Generating Complex Answers: Studies have tested ChatGPT on university exams, revealing its ability to provide answers comparable to above-average students.
• Identifying Students’ Needs: The program’s scanning capabilities allow it to identify areas where students may need additional support, which can lead to more personalized education.
• Grading and Assessment: ChatGPT can also assist in grading student assignments, providing quick feedback to students. “Similar to previous chatbots, ChatGPT has a high skill level in grading and evaluation, which can benefit students by providing quick feedback and performing student assessments much faster.”
• Data Analysis: Its ability to perform various types of data analysis is noted. “Another feature of ChatGPT is its ability to perform data analysis. This can result in individuals more easily performing behavioral analysis, text analysis, and the analysis of extensive textual data…”
• Prevention of Cybercrime: The AI’s data processing capabilities can aid in identifying and preventing cyberbullying and cybercrime.
• Cataloguing: ChatGPT can classify and categorize texts, books, and data.
• Directing: The potential for AI chatbots to guide patients to specialists based on their reported symptoms is explored, though not in a medical diagnosis context.
• Material Design: The technology can support the creation of learning materials for educational purposes.

6. Research Findings: Potential Problems Associated with ChatGPT:

• Cheating: A major concern is the potential for students to use ChatGPT to cheat on assignments and exams.
• Generating Incorrect Answers: Despite its capabilities, ChatGPT is prone to providing incorrect answers, especially with events beyond 2021 or in areas where resources are scarce.
• Creating Bias: The potential for AI tools like ChatGPT to create biased information based on the data it is trained on is acknowledged.
• Legal Issues: There are legal questions about intellectual property and the use of AI-generated content.
• Ethical Issues: There are ethical concerns about ChatGPT’s lack of independent ethical thinking and the potential for it to be used for harmful purposes. “Since ChatGPT does not develop an ethical perception independently, there is the risk of creating an undesirable result, such as the program’s ability to answer undesirable or objectionable questions.”

7. Discussion & Implications:

• Technological Development: Technology is seen as a key driver in the progression of humanity, influencing many fields, including education.
• Impact on Content Creation: ChatGPT has advanced the way content is created and its impact on educational environments. “ChatGPT, the final product of this partnership, has taken people’s content creation and their impact on educational environments to a whole new level”
• Positive Applications in Education: AI can be beneficial in situations where classroom discussions are difficult to develop, and ChatGPT can aid in exam preparation, providing guidance on relevant material.
• Concerns About Critical Thinking: Over-reliance on ChatGPT could hinder the development of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, and lead to an over-dependence on AI solutions. “However, students utilizing ChatGPT in place of searching for their own answers to every question can result in addiction and can negatively affect the development of human-specific critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.”
• Translation Limitations: While ChatGPT can translate languages, there are concerns about the potential loss of nuance and metaphors, which may lead to inaccurate information in academic settings.
• Content Creation Concerns: There is risk that content generated by ChatGPT could become similar over time and lack true creativity and originality, especially in identifying detailed information specific to certain fields of education.
• Material Development Potential: ChatGPT can help create personalized educational content and learning resources, although it requires human intervention and ideation for full engagement.
• Assessment Challenges: There are issues regarding how AI-generated content impacts traditional assessment methods and copyright concerns related to AI-generated materials.
• Personalized Learning: AI can help understand student’s individual learning needs more quickly which can aid personalized education planning. “Testing students’ interests and needs through artificial intelligence before starting classroom practices can enable teachers to plan, implement, and direct a more effective educational environment for their students”
• Data Analysis Benefits: AI can speed up the process of data analysis and classification, aiding teachers in creating tailored educational content. “Instead of using many resources while preparing educational content, teachers can design content suitable for their purposes using AI features of data analysis and data classification.”
• Impact on Human Cognition: Over reliance on AI may negatively affect a students’ cognitive skills and reduce their creative abilities. Also, the study notes that unchecked use of artificial intelligence might cause harm to individuals due to ‘artificial intelligence addiction or AI-induced cyberloafing’. “As such, a high degree of adherence to the content created by ChatGPT may negatively affect students’ cognitive skills and thereby reduce their creative-thinking skills.”
• Holistic Development: The document emphasizes that humans should not be treated as machines, and education should prioritize the holistic development of the individual. “It is against the basic understanding of education that the social aspect of human beings and our natural senses in life are accepted only as machines.”

8.  Conclusion

The document presents a comprehensive overview of ChatGPT and its potential impact on education. It highlights the benefits of the technology, such as generating complex answers, analyzing large datasets, and assisting in content creation, while also addressing significant concerns like the potential for cheating, the generation of incorrect information, bias, ethical issues, and the importance of maintaining human critical-thinking skills. The conclusion is that while AI tools can enhance the educational experience, careful consideration must be given to potential drawbacks and a holistic approach to learning.

FAQ on Educational Applications of ChatGPT

What is ChatGPT and how does it work?

ChatGPT, short for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is an advanced AI language model developed by OpenAI, first released in November 2022. It is based on the GPT-3 family of models and is enhanced using supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. This means it is trained using massive amounts of text data to understand and generate human-like text and is refined through feedback on the quality of its responses. It can perform various tasks, including generating detailed answers to questions, mimicking human conversation, translating languages, writing and debugging computer code, and creating creative content such as lyrics and poetry.

What are the potential benefits of using ChatGPT in education?

ChatGPT has several potential educational benefits. It can act as a powerful tool for abstracting and summarizing large volumes of text, thereby providing quick previews and categorization of information. It can assist in literature reviews, and aid in generating educational content and materials, even adapting to individual user styles. Students can use it to access detailed explanations and guidance on course content for exam preparation. Furthermore, ChatGPT can help identify students’ learning needs earlier through rapid data analysis and provide a personalized learning experience. It can also be used to grade and assess student work, providing fast feedback. For educators, it can help with material design and the creation of learning resources, as well as offering new avenues for interdisciplinary work.

What are some of the key concerns about implementing ChatGPT in educational settings?

There are several serious concerns regarding ChatGPT’s educational use. A primary concern is the potential for misuse, such as students using it to generate academic work, which raises serious issues of academic integrity and plagiarism. It also presents issues with ethics since its knowledge base is derived from its training data, and it doesn’t possess independent ethical awareness. Furthermore, while it can generate high-quality text, it can sometimes provide inaccurate or incomplete information, particularly on events after 2021 or in areas where limited resources exist. The possibility of AI-induced addiction and the negative impacts on human-specific cognitive skills are also valid concerns.

How can ChatGPT be used to help students with their studies and assignments?

ChatGPT offers diverse ways to help students. It can be used for deep research, summarizing complex texts quickly and providing quick access to information. It can help with translations and paraphrasing tasks. Furthermore, it can generate detailed answers for homework and test preparation. It can also give guidance on exam scope and content. These abilities can offer a new level of personalized learning, where students can receive tailored support and guidance.

How can ChatGPT be used by teachers to enhance the educational process?

Teachers can utilize ChatGPT for several purposes: They can use it to create individualized educational materials, design learning content, and generate new ideas for lesson plans. They can use its data analysis capabilities to evaluate students’ needs and tailor learning to individual requirements. ChatGPT can also help in creating different kinds of assessments, as it has shown the ability to accurately assess and grade student work. The use of such technology can also allow teachers to explore new and varied approaches in interdisciplinary work.

What are the limitations of ChatGPT, especially concerning the accuracy and bias of its outputs?

ChatGPT has several limitations. Its knowledge is restricted to information available up to 2021, so it can generate inaccurate or outdated answers for more recent events. The program has also been known to produce incorrect answers in situations where information is scarce, and can even sometimes produce fabricated texts. It also exhibits algorithmic bias from its training data, sometimes showing a preference for longer answers from human reviewers, and some studies have shown it has a pro-environmental, left-libertarian orientation, which can introduce a potential bias into its responses.

What measures are being taken to address the potential risks of using ChatGPT in education?

Various measures are being considered to mitigate the negative effects of ChatGPT. Some educational institutions, like the New York City Department of Education, have blocked access to ChatGPT on their networks. Educators are considering adjustments to assessment strategies to challenge ChatGPT’s capabilities and discourage simple reliance on its text output, encouraging more critical thinking and less rote memorization. Furthermore, technologies like “GPTZero” have been developed to detect AI-generated text, potentially combating academic dishonesty. There are also calls for developing policies and regulations regarding the use of AI in educational institutions.

What is the long term impact of AI tools like ChatGPT on the future of education?

The integration of AI like ChatGPT is expected to fundamentally change how education is delivered and received. It has the potential to make learning more personalized and accessible, but it also presents challenges to existing educational standards and norms. It requires educators and students to adapt to new technologies and to learn how to use them ethically and effectively. There is the potential for technology like this to reshape how students learn to engage with and interact with the world and with information, and there is a pressing need to address both the opportunities and risks that AI brings. The future of education will involve finding a balance between human engagement and AI-assisted learning to ensure a well-rounded, creative, and critical approach to knowledge acquisition and development.

Reference

İpek, Z.H., Gözüm, A.İ.C., Papadakis, S., & Kallogiannakis, M. (2023). Educational Applications of the ChatGPT AI System: A Systematic Review Research. Educational Process: International Journal, 12(3), 26-55.