ChatGPT: Part of this Post was Written with Artificial Intelligence

I recently lost power at my house which disrupted my wifi service. I have Verizon FiOS and usually, I can just unplug the router and plug it back in to restart the wifi, but for some reason, my tried and true technique wasn't working. I have called Verizon in the past, but I tend to quickly lose patience when an automated message service tries to route my call to the appropriate support staff so I decided to try their online chat service. The "chat bot" was actually quite helpful--it suggested a few solutions and when none of those worked, it was evident that my router must have dropped my IP address so the whole system had to be rebooted, which is something Verizon could do remotely. The chat bot made if feel as if I was communicating with an actual person, but in reality, it was artificial intelligence that helped solve my problem. 

AI has recently come across my Twitter feed as several of the educators I follow have been discussing a potentially game-changing AI platform called ChatGPT (check out this article from CNET to see what ChatGPT is all about). I decided to sign up for an account and give it a try. I asked it to write an essay with the following prompt:

What do the laws of a society tell us about the lives and beliefs of the people who write, enforce, and obey those laws? What was the chief difference between the law codes of Hammurabi and Moses?

Candidly, I was BLOWN AWAY by the quality of the 5 paragraph essay that ChatGPT produced. I then showed the tool to some high school social studies teachers and ELA teachers. They, too, were impressed with the sophistication of the written work that ChatGPT produced. We even had it include direct quotes from a short story that was part of an 11th grade ELA Regents Exam prompt...and ChatGPT handled the task with ease! I share all of this with you because I asked ChatGPT to "write a blog post to introduce ChatGPT to teachers." Here's what it produced:

ChatGPT is a state-of-the-art language processing tool that can generate human-like text responses based on a given prompt. It was developed by OpenAI, a leading research organization in the field of artificial intelligence.

As a teacher, you may be wondering how ChatGPT can be used in the classroom. There are many potential applications for this powerful tool. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Automatic essay grading: ChatGPT can be used to grade written assignments quickly and accurately. Simply provide it with a prompt and a student's essay, and it will provide feedback and a score based on its understanding of the prompt and the quality of the writing.
2. Personalized learning: ChatGPT can be used to create customized learning materials for individual students or small groups. By providing it with a student's interests and learning goals, it can generate personalized reading materials and practice exercises that are tailored to their needs.
3. Virtual tutoring: ChatGPT can be used to provide one-on-one tutoring sessions to students in need of extra help. Simply provide it with a prompt and let it guide the conversation, answering questions and providing explanations as needed.
4. Collaborative writing: ChatGPT can be used to help students brainstorm and collaborate on writing projects. By providing it with a prompt and some initial ideas, it can generate new ideas and help students organize their thoughts into a cohesive narrative.

Overall, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize the way we teach and learn. Its ability to understand and respond to natural language makes it an incredibly useful tool for educators looking to engage and support their students.

I then asked a follow-up question: "What are the drawbacks of using ChatGPT in the classroom?" Here's what ChatGPT had to say:

There are several potential drawbacks to using chatgpt, or any language model, in the classroom:

1. Limited knowledge: Chatgpt, like any language model, is only as knowledgeable as the data it was trained on. This means it may not be able to provide accurate or complete answers to questions outside of its training data.
2. Lack of context: Chatgpt does not have access to the same context and real-world experiences as a human teacher. This can make it difficult for the model to understand the full meaning or context of a question or conversation.
3. Bias: Chatgpt, like any machine learning model, can reflect the biases present in the data it was trained on. This means it is important to carefully consider the source and representativeness of the data used to train the model.
4. Dependence on technology: Using chatgpt in the classroom would require access to technology and a stable internet connection, which may not be available to all students.
5. Difficulty adapting to individual needs: Chatgpt is not able to tailor its responses to the specific needs and abilities of individual students, as a human teacher can.

Overall, while chatgpt and other language models can be useful tools for learning, they should be used in conjunction with human teachers and other resources, rather than replacing them entirely.