ChatGPT Generates Buzz

Chatgpt

Prof. Haym Hirsh, computer science and information science, said that while students could always cheat, the introduction of ChatGPT has made plagiarism more accessible.

“Now it becomes possible to just run a program to [complete assignments] — cheaply and as often as you want,” Hirsh said. “And even when it’s not about cheating wholesale, you can use ChatGPT to do elements of assignments — like framing the response to a homework question, letting the software do it rather than the student doing it and learning from that part of the exercise.”

Nick Weising ’24 is Cornell Intellectual Property and Ethics Club’s lead researcher and shared concerns that excess ChatGPT use may make it harder for students in primary and secondary education to acquire foundational skills.

“ChatGPT can blow through multiplication table worksheets, summarize chapters of books and answer historical [and] science questions,” Weising said. “A lot of this work is repetitive to drill core concepts [and] skills into students’ brains so that they can be drawn upon in more advanced courses. This work is also designed to get students acclimated with the process of working through [hard problems which] helps students in the future regardless of their academic or professional career.”

Some professors are also concerned with

ChatGPT’s spread of misinformation. Prof. Kim Weeden, sociology, expressed that the common person may struggle to discern whether some AI-generated information is reliable.

“AI technologies are in some sense laundering misinformation and biased information. They grab bits of existing content, feed it through an opaque probability model and then spit out ‘new’ content that’s been stripped of information about its sources,” Weeden said.

At universities across the nation, administrations have formed task forces and held university discussions to address ChatGPT. The University of Buffalo and Furman University plan to establish AI discussions into required classes for freshmen. Washington University and the University of Vermont are adapting academic integrity policies to address generative artificial intelligence.

In other cases, professors are adapting classes to a post-ChatGPT learning environment. Prof. Aumann, philosophy, of Northern Michigan University decided to tweak his teaching methods after a student confessed to utilizing ChatGPT on an assignment. These changes include mandating students to construct first drafts in class.

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