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Chat GPT and AI Ethics by Andrei Vernon, Year 13 AI, or artificial intelligence, has become a hot topic in the news
have surpassed us in speed, and at this rate, they will soon
in the last few months, and for good reason. With the rapid
surpass us in intellect as well. What will we become if we
advancement of technology, AI is becoming more and more
outsource our thinking to machines?
integrated into our daily lives, from chatbots on customer service websites to self-driving cars. One of the most notable
For schools, the largest concern is that of plagiarism.
examples in recent memory is ChatGPT.
Students might use the AI to write their assignments and then claim ownership of its essays and problem sets.
Released on November 30, 2022, ChatGPT is a chatbot using
Universities in particular are worried about the potential
a language model called GPT-3. It works by using a technique
damage ChatGPT could do to their lesson plans and have
called machine learning, where the AI is trained on a large
been rushing to catch students using the tool to cheat.
dataset of human-generated text. This training allows the AI to “understand” the context and generate appropriate responses
One response, which has been observed in New York City’s
when it is given new text as input. As a result, ChatGPT can
public school system, is to crack down and block access
produce human-like text that is often indistinguishable from text
to the tool on their computers and networks. However,
written by a human.
some propose a more accepting approach toward AI. They
Although the core function of a chatbot is to mimic a human
suggest that, much like calculators or cell phones, AI will
conversation, ChatGPT is versatile, being able to write and
become commonplace. Instead of banning ChatGPT, we
debug computer programs; compose music, teleplays, fairy
should use it to generate feedback for our work, help with
tales, and student essays; write poetry and song lyrics; simulate
brainstorming or creative tasks, and prepare us to work
an entire chat room; and even play games like tic-tac-toe.
alongside such systems in the future.
Despite its wide functionality, the AI has some significant
As for those worrying about what AI will do to their jobs,
limitations. For example, it can often generate nonsensical or
I think that depends on how we adapt to it. As Stephen
outright wrong information in a confident manner. ChatGPT
Hawking once wrote, “If machines produce everything
is programmed to filter out possibly offensive or inappropriate
we need, the outcome will depend on how things are
responses, but it can often be duped into generatin
distributed. So far, the trend seems to be toward technology driving ever-increasing inequality.” The prosperity that
g these kinds of answers if given the right prompt.
automation brings us may not mean much if it’s funneled to
These flaws raise some big ethical concerns. Some people
fewer and fewer people. Ultimately, whether our future looks
are worried about how ChatGPT could be used to generate
more like Star Trek or Blade Runner might depend on the
large amounts of misinformation, allowing fake narratives
actions we take today.
to spread more rapidly than ever before. Others are worried about AI replacing or atrophying human intelligence. Bots