Robots that can mimic human abilities are nothing new. Our self-driving cars can “see” its surroundings, robots can move like us, and Siri speaks to us from our phones. But now, artificial intelligence is mimicking the way we think.

ChatGPT is a new AI system, launched in late November 2022, that has the ability to write very similar to a human based on a given prompt. It uses a massive database of writing examples off the internet which it references when creating sentences, whether it is for an email, poem, or essay. It reached a million users just five days after its release.

Sophomore Gabriel Ortego has some experience with the AI and is impressed by its skill in writing.

“It’s like holding a conversation,” Ortego said. “I’ve played with it a little myself and it’s really impressive the way it understands what you’re referencing and the concepts it understands.”

As ChatGPT becomes increasingly advanced, there is a growing concern that students may use the technology to cheat on exams and assignments. The ability of the model to understand and respond to natural language inputs, as well as generate human-like text, makes it possible for students to use ChatGPT to generate answers to test questions or even entire written assignments. 

This has sparked concern in teachers across the district. English teacher Ben Lieberman sees ChatGPT as technology that will change the education system, and college in particular.

“If I am a college professor, it’s really going to be hard for me to spot the difference between an AI writing sample and a real human writing sample, especially if I’m asking my students to write a very formulaic essay,” Lieberman said.

Along with writing essays, ChatGPT can write YouTube intros or formulate a letter to a boss. Ortego sees it as a good tool for certain situations.

“It’s useful, especially when I’m proofing my debate speeches, making them flow better,” Ortego said. “Oftentimes, it caught spelling errors in my own speeches which can result in issues during a debate session.”

Though Ortego understands the concerns toward ChatGPT, he thinks it can be a very effective learning tool.

“I taught myself advanced factoring on it with polynomial rows, because I did not understand it in math class,” Ortego said. “It explained the concepts incredibly well.”

A few students see it as useful, others are scared to use it for fear of getting in trouble. Junior Grace Dasari, does not trust it.

“I assume if you’re writing a fifth grade essay, it’d be fine, but not for high schoolers,” Dasari said. “[Teachers] could definitely tell it’s not good enough and doesn’t have all the stuff you need an essay to have.”

Besides writing, ChatGPT has the ability to code. Computer Science teacher Julia Berry says using ChatGPT for coding defeats the purpose of her teaching the students.

“It’s kind of like learning a new language, [like] French,” Berry said. “This learning of a new language, and then you go to France and you speak the language. But if someone does all the work for you, all the assignments, at the end of the semester you don’t know the language.”

Experts say this is a huge step in technological advancement. In fact, did you notice anything different about the fifth paragraph in this article? Well, it was written entirely by ChatGPT.

“I mean, it’s a little scary, but it’s also incredibly impressive,” Ortego said.

AI UPDATE:

Microsoft’s updated search engine, that combines Bing with ChatGPT technology, has been the center of controversy after various interactions with users. The bot has, among other things, threatened people, fantasized about revealing nuclear secrets, and even tried to convince a user to leave his wife for the chatbot.