What’s happening in education with ChatGPT and artificial intelligence? Amara’s Law, developed by American researcher Roy Carles Amara, states that people throughout history have tended to overestimate the impact of technology in the short term and underestimate it in the long term. Perhaps the state of opinion created in recent months about the “intelligent” online chat system, ChatGPT, is a case in point. Perhaps it serves to put technologies related to artificial intelligence and its implications on the educational radar.
ChatGPT is a chatbot, or computer application, that can hold a written conversation with humans in natural language or write texts on demand from users. We have seen many examples of human-ChatGPT interactions on social networks and media that have left us amazed. He could ask about anything, and his answers were grammatically correct texts (in the language of the person’s choice), well-structured, fluent in style, and seemed to be a reasonable answer to the question asked. Thinking machines are already here!, it was said. The press, on the other hand, was responsible for a few days to exaggerate the fact and turn the educational system into a global threat: if students can use an application like ChatGPT to write their works, everything goes to hell moral panic… like on the first railway?
Some educational institutions, a bit over the top, have banned their use by students… on their campuses. Some teachers, somewhat bewildered, have asked academic authorities for advice on how to revise the assignments their students complete so they don’t “sneak” work written by AI. Universities have published recommendations for teachers online. An article published in the Spanish Journal of Medical Education describes an experiment in which MIR 2022 exam questions were submitted to ChatGPT… and passed! Although slightly below average, yes.
One of the problems with artificial intelligence is that few people know how it works, and we believe that it is similar to human intelligence in name, but this is far from the truth. There is no canonical definition of AI. There are those who argue that it is enough for a machine to “exhibit intelligent behavior” to be considered such, while some of its founders argue that its mission is not to simulate human intelligence, but to effectively solve the problems it is designed to do. It was programmed. Perhaps it was a bit of an exaggeration to call it “intelligence” and a reasonable definition, according to the JISC (United Kingdom Joint tion Systems Committee), would be more like “a set of theories and techniques developed to help computer systems perform tasks. They usually do.” They need human or biological intelligence.”
Its current application areas are very numerous and, sometimes, unknown to citizens. Although the algorithms by which they make their decisions are murkier still. Darkness is incompatible with democracy.
Two concepts are usually associated with AI: automatic learning (“machine learning”) and deep learning (“deep learning”). This is not the place for a detailed explanation (excellent introductions can be found online), but we should get an idea of how intelligence is derived from artificial intelligence. Thus, machine learning defines a specific set of statistically based techniques that aim to identify patterns in large data sets and then perform actions based on those patterns. Statistical methods such as neural networks, decision trees, or logistic regression are commonly used. The quality of AI responses depends on the quantity and quality of data and training procedures. Deep learning is a class of machine learning based on neural networks (another carefully chosen name) and requires large data sets and significant computing power. So most advanced AI systems like ChatGPT use deep learning…, with results we know.
There are two main types of “educational” questions about artificial intelligence: the first can be grouped under the rubric of “education with AI.” Second, “Education for the Age of AI.”
What has been researched so far about AI-assisted education? A recent systematic review identified four broad categories with different themes in each: a) Artificial intelligence in learning, such as assigning tasks to students based on their current knowledge, providing “educational” conversations between humans and machines, and student analytics. work on providing performance feedback and increasing the adaptability and interactivity of the digital environment in which some learning takes place; b) Artificial intelligence in teaching, such as smart teaching systems that recommend personalized learning content and tasks to students, along with computer-assisted teaching, AI technologies are used to help teachers manage their teaching in the classroom and ultimately support teachers’ professional development; c) In AI assessment, there are currently artificial intelligence systems that provide automatic assessment of student performance and others predict future performance based on data, which makes it possible to predetermine corrective measures if necessary; And finally, d) AI in administration is used to improve the performance of management platforms, offer personalized services and support evidence-based educational decision-making.
And what has been reflected in “education for the age of AI”? It is clear that this is a much more complex and multifaceted topic than the previous one. And we have more questions than answers. It is possible that artificial intelligence will spread like a fine rain in more and more areas of people’s lives. Companies and governments use it to make decisions and deliver services. The questions carried over to the explicit curriculum are: What should students know and be able to do about AI at each educational level? What should they know about their rights as citizens that are still regulated and what kind of threats they face to these rights? What legal guarantees will the administration’s AI-supported decisions have on relevant aspects of our lives? What will young people need to understand the possibilities and limitations of artificial intelligence as professionals in different fields? For example, what does a future doctor need to know about artificial intelligence in his profession? Or a graduate in a particular family of professional training? And a lawyer or a lawyer?
In the face of the unknown, we can only use what we are absolutely sure of and deeply committed to: human rights, the Sustainable Development Goals, quality participatory democracy, compulsory, public education focused on integral development. People rather than their “employability” and market value, a political system that does not privilege the most powerful, neglects those who are not “profitable” or productive, strong control by large technology companies, etc. And we need reflection.
If, as Clemenceau said, “war is too serious a matter to be left in the hands of the military”; Today, artificial intelligence is a very important issue to get into the hands of IT companies. Governments should know. The problem is whether they have the necessary resources and faith. As educators, we need to know what AI can do, how it can do, and what it can’t do. In 2011, Marc Andreessen wrote a phrase that is increasingly true: “Software is eating the world.” If the political impact of the algorithms governing social networks was not understood, anticipated or predicted, this time we must be ready. In fact, there is a growing awareness of the ethical, legal, social, political, economic, educational problems, etc., that can be caused by maximizing the benefits of AI (un)managed businesses. We have our problems in education. We may have lost our fear of AI replacing teachers, but in the long run it will definitely redefine their roles, teaching/learning environments and student activities. Can you imagine the positive and negative effects of a “smart” guide? Some science fiction authors have been able to. Denying its use in the classroom won’t do much, it will only rob young people of the right to develop the skills they need, including critical thinking, to live in a world far more technologically complex than the one we, their teachers, live in. met Moreover, in education, nostalgia for an ancient, idealized and false world will only leave us more out of the game.
Source: El Diario
