Table of Contents
- Recommendation
- Take-Aways
- Summary
- ChatGPT is a machine-learning model that creates text in response to prompts typed into a chat interface.
- University students and learning businesses can use ChatGPT to personalize learning.
- ChatGPT can assist learners with assignments, but this raises obvious ethical concerns.
- ChatGPT will likely change the way learning businesses produce content.
- Users of ChatGPT run the risk of perpetuating misinformation and biases.
- About the Podcast
Recommendation
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s revolutionary machine-learning chatbot, made headlines with its launch in the fall of 2022. Within months, Microsoft said it planned to employ the technology in its products, and Google and Baidu announced their own AI-driven chatbots. In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, learning experts Celisa Steele and Jeff Cobb cover the basics: what ChatGPT is, how it works and how it could transform the learning industry. In an interesting demonstration, the podcast includes portions generated by ChatGPT.
Take-Aways
- ChatGPT is a machine-learning model that creates text in response to prompts typed into a chat interface.
- University students and learning businesses can use ChatGPT to personalize learning.
- ChatGPT can assist learners with assignments, but this raises obvious ethical concerns.
- ChatGPT will likely change the way learning businesses produce content.
- Users of ChatGPT run the risk of perpetuating misinformation and biases.
Summary
ChatGPT is a machine-learning model that creates text in response to prompts typed into a chat interface.
ChatGPT takes its name from the combination of a chat interface with a generative pretrained transformer (GPT) – a type of language model from the artificial intelligence (AI) research lab OpenAI. OpenAI added the chat interface to make its third-generation GPT easier for non-technical people to use.
“This is the tipping point on AI that we’ve been waiting for.” (Jeff Cobb)
You use ChatGPT by going to OpenAI’s online chat interface, creating an account and typing in a question or request. ChatGPT will respond instantly, and you can then go back and forth, engaging in a conversation with the model. Within 10 days of its launch at the end of November 2022, ChatGPT had two million users.
University students and learning businesses can use ChatGPT to personalize learning.
Universities are enlisting ChatGPT to create personalized study plans and serve as a tutor. For learning businesses, ChatGPT is enhancing professional development and continuing education by tailoring learning experiences to learners’ individual needs. ChatGPT could also improve access to education, training and coaching by offering real-time support and feedback. Coaching programs based on AI already exist, such as Cultivate and Edthena.
ChatGPT can assist learners with assignments, but this raises obvious ethical concerns.
Learners can turn to ChatGPT for help with assignments, such as solving word problems in mathematics, writing text about a topic or debugging code. Students could then submit ChatGPT’s work as their own, without learning how to solve problems themselves.
“ChatGPT and other conversational AI tools have the chance to become a new and accepted tool – like calculators, like the internet.” (Jeff Cobb)
Whether students use ChatGPT for learning or for avoiding learning will depend on their own ethics and the institutional rules under which they operate. At least one high school has blocked the ChatGPT site.
ChatGPT will likely change the way learning businesses produce content.
ChatGPT has the potential to transform the way learning businesses and subject-matter experts (SMEs) work together. ChatGPT could generate a list of learning objectives for a particular topic, and then the SME could write content – or, conversely, the SME could create the objectives, and ChatGPT could generate content for each one. ChatGPT can also suggest assignments and test questions. Learning professionals will need to review ChatGPT’s text and fold in their own expertise and perspectives to ensure an authoritative and trustworthy end product.
ChatGPT can generate draft marketing copy too, such as course descriptions, blog post titles and social media posts. Learning businesses won’t be able to use this material as is, but ChatGPT will facilitate and speed up the copywriting process.
Users of ChatGPT run the risk of perpetuating misinformation and biases.
Because ChatGPT bases its responses on existing information, it can replicate whatever biases and inaccuracies exist in that information. People could even use ChatGPT intentionally to generate and propagate misinformation – much faster and with wider reach than has been possible before.
“GPT, and really AI in general, is just not yet very competent at determining the truth of content.” (Celisa Steele)
Organizations and SMEs will have an ethical responsibility to vet content for its accuracy and fairness. ChatGPT could also create equity issues if costs limit people’s ability to use it. OpenAI made ChatGPT free to use when the tool first launched, but that will likely change.
About the Podcast
The Leading Learning podcast offers insights and perspectives for learning professionals. Co-hosts Celisa Steele and Jeff Cobb co-founded Tagoras, a consultancy that serves the professional development, continuing education and lifelong learning markets.