Introduction Issue 2: Humanities in the time of ChatGPT and other forms of AIs (original) (raw)

Generative AI Adoption in Postsecondary Education, AI Hype, and ChatGPT's Launch

Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association Journal, 2024

The rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) into postsecondary education and many other sectors resulted in a global reckoning with this new technology. This paper contributes to the study of the multifaceted influence of generative AI, with a particular focus on OpenAI's ChatGPT within academic settings during the first six months after the release in three specific ways. First, it scrutinizes the rise of ChatGPT as a transformative event construed through a study of mainstream discourses exhibiting AI hype. Second, it discusses the perceived implications of generative AI for writing, teaching, and learning through the lens of critical discourse analysis and critical AI studies. Third, it encourages the necessity for best practices in the adoption of generative AI technologies in education.

Writing with AI: University students' use of ChatGPT

Journal of Language and Education, 2023

Background: ChatGPT, a chatbot based on a large language model, captured global attention toward the end of 2022. With its potential to generate comprehensive texts of a variety of genres based on a string of straightforward prompts, it was soon perceived as a threat by many in various fields, including-and in particular-education. Schools across the world began banning its use as instructors started to receive suspiciously well-written essays and assignments from their students. Aim: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of use of ChatGPT among university students for written assignments, explore the ways students utilize the tool, and examine students' perspectives on the ethical aspects of its use. Method: An online questionnaire was designed to collect data from 201 students from private and public universities in Croatia. Results: The results show that more than half of the participants use ChatGPT for written assignments, that most use it to generate ideas, while many use it to summarize, paraphrase, proofread, but also to write a part of the assignment for them. According to the participants, the most ethically acceptable use of ChatGPT is for generating ideas, while other uses are perceived by many as being unethical; this, however, has not prevented some students from engaging in behaviors they deem unethical. Conclusion: We conclude that universities and instructors need to take a decisive stand on artificial intelligence in education and provide clear guidelines to students regarding the ethical use of ChatGPT and emerging technologies.

AI, ChatGPT and Global Learning: Reimagining the Future of Higher Education

ChatGPT and generative AI will be fast approaching its first birthday by the time CIEE holds its 76th conference in Paris. AI's first year already compels us to reimagine Higher and Global Education. AI has been part of our experience since it was so named in 1956, but with ChatGPT's arrival and rapid development, we are increasingly thinking of it in anthropomorphic terms. ChatGPT has been 'fed' internet scrapings since its 'birth'. i When it delivers racist or unacceptable responses to prompts, we are told that the technology is still in its 'infancy'; ii it needs to be 'schooled'. iii As its capabilities are rapidly refined and improved, we are told that it is 'learning' and that it can now, in its 'maturity', produce the higher level thinking that previously we had believed to be the domain of human intelligence. iv At the 3-month mark, it was still just possible to distinguish between human and artificial intelligence but not reliably. v By November in Paris, many doubt that it will still be possible. vi

Should academics be concerned about articles written by ChatGPT?

Developments in health sciences, 2024

The Internet has opened up many opportunities for people to express their thoughts and opinions. One such opportunity takes the form of Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT), a program that individuals can use to write articles for publication. This has led to debate among academics about whether they should consider ChatGPT as a credible tool for generating content for publication. This article explores the pros and cons of using ChatGPT and examines whether academics should worry about its impact on their reputation. Firstly, it is important to recognise that academic writing is supposed to be original work that reflects a person's knowledge, creativity, and individuality. When artificial intelligence (AI) writing tools are used, the question arises as to whether the writer has truly demonstrated his or her academic capabilities or is merely relying on machine-generated content, thus devaluing the concept of originality that has been a crucial aspect of academia for centuries. It is imperative that AI writing tools do not become a shortcut or substitute for the intellectual rigour and creativity required of researchers and scholars. The use of AI writing tools may also give rise to ethical concerns, primarily with respect to plagiarism. Since AI writing tools mimic existing texts, artificially generated content potentially plagiarises original works. Without proper citation, writers may be liable for copyright infringement, even if unintentional. Furthermore, academic institutions place a high value on the attribution of sources and ideas: researchers are expected to acknowledge their colleagues' work in their published papers, for example. Using AI writing tools potentially weakens this practice, thus jeopardising academic integrity [1]. Academics are now starting to worry about the implications of AI tools, particularly in relation to writing. If ChatGPT is able to generate articles, summaries, and even substantial academic papers to a high standard, then what is the significance of the work produced by scholars? Although instant outputs from ChatGPT are improving, the program is still incapable of identifying the difference between good and mediocre writing. Writing involves analysing new data, understanding the connections between different topics, and monitoring the quality of opposing arguments. While ChatGPT may be able to convey a great deal of content, it is not yet equipped to perform these higher-level activities in the way that humans can [2]. Furthermore, ChatGPT is unable to come up with original ideas and evaluate content within a particular field. Its output is only as beneficial as the data that have been used to train it, and although it can produce accurate and relevant content, the originality and quality of that content are questionable. As a result, academics should not be concerned about ChatGPT in terms of the quality of their work. ChatGPT is an excellent tool for avoiding repetitive tasks, providing useful and efficient answers to common questions, and performing tasks that do not require human input. However, academics do not need to be afraid about their work being replaced by ChatGPT, as the technology is still in its infancy and has not yet been perfected for the creation of academic content. On the contrary, academics would do well to embrace the opportunity to improve communication between technology and humans [3]. One of the most significant potential impacts of AI writing in academia is the loss of jobs for academic writers. There is no doubt that AI algorithms are becoming more and more competent in terms of producing high-quality content, which raises the question of whether human writers will one day become obsolete. However, it is important to note that AI writing Developments in Health Sciences

ChatGPT and the Educational AI Chatter: Full of Bullshit or Trying to Tell Us Something

Postdigital Science and Education, 2023

Something is making you read each one of these words, but once you get to the end of this sentence you will get a momentary relief. A mild stress or desire pulls you along word by word as you read, until you stop, ever so briefly at a comma or a full stop. Once we reach these waymarks of punctuation, there is a tiny cessation of desire. We experience it as a collapse of the subject-object distinction. In this way, we, the reader as subject, are completely absorbed by each word in a string of successive objects. We follow the line of words as a dog does a hare. The hare may be a living creature, or it may be a machine on a track. All that matters is that the lure is convincing, as once it is, we will run (Fig. 1). It does not matter who or what wrote these words. When we read, we cannot precisely remember what happened a few lines ago, and we have no idea what will happen in the lines ahead, but we continue nonetheless, as long as we feel progress is being made. If the words keep stringing together in a plausible fashion, we will follow. Nothing really needs to be said. In fact, nothing is. I am not telling you anything right now that you do not already know, nor giving you anything that you do not already possess. The argument of this paragraph, by implication, is that language has some quality of proliferation. We become caught up in a subject-object chase, punctuated now and then by almost imperceptible intermittent cessations. But further to this, there is sometimes a strange sense we can get, of object-subject instead of subject-object. That is, sometimes it would seem that we are not reading the words, but they are reading us.

Integrating AI in Education: Opportunities, Challenges and Responsible Use of ChatGPT

2024

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and associated technologies like machine learning, neural networks and natural language processing has led to innovative applications across diverse fields including education. One of the most prominent examples is ChatGPT, launched in November 2022, which is an AI system designed by OpenAI to engage in natural conversations and accomplish tasks based on prompts provided in plain language. ChatGPT has quickly gained immense popularity due to its ability to produce remarkably human-like text. It has over 100 million users interacting with it to generate essays, poems, dialogues, explanations and various other texts within seconds in a conversational format. The implications of AI systems like ChatGPT for the future of education have become a topic of animated debate and speculation. While some believe that AI will revolutionize education, others urge caution about overestimating its capabilities and minimizing its risks. This essay aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the opportunities and challenges associated with the application of ChatGPT and other AI technologies in education. It will discuss the key strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT, analyze the main external factors that present potential benefits and risks, and propose strategies to integrate AI responsibly and ethically into education to enhance teaching and learning.

THE USE OF CHATGPT IN ACADEMIC WRITING: A BLESSING OR A CURSE IN DISGUISE

TEFLIN, 2023

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT has left people feeling ambivalent and disagreement among scholars, academicians, educators and the community at large prevails. While the artificial intelligence could potentially revolutionize how research is conducted and how research papers are written, a number of ethical concerns arise. In particular, the world of academia has reservations pertaining to whether this language model will actually do more good than harm, especially as far as academic writing is concerned. This paper argues that the cutting-edge technology is here to stay and the question is not whether to accept it, but rather, how to best utilize it judiciously, cautiously and responsibly to improve research performance by strictly adhering to academic integrity and transparency. Potential benefits and drawbacks of ChatGPT will be critically examined in light of current literature and, when relevant, potential solutions to the drawbacks will also be provided or commented on. Needless to say, the use of artificial intelligence in academic writing is still in its infancy and more discussion and debates pertaining to its use and merit are highly urged. This paper contributes to these ongoing debates.

A SWOT analysis of ChatGPT: Implications for educational practice and research

Innovations in Education and Teaching International , 2023

ChatGPT is an AI tool that has sparked debates about its potential implications for education. We used the SWOT analysis framework to outline ChatGPT's strengths and weaknesses and to discuss its opportunities for and threats to education. The strengths include using a sophisticated natural language model to generate plausible answers, self-improving capability, and providing personalised and real-time responses. As such, ChatGPT can increase access to information, facilitate personalised and complex learning, and decrease teaching workload, thereby making key processes and tasks more efficient. The weaknesses are a lack of deep understanding, difficulty in evaluating the quality of responses, a risk of bias and discrimination, and a lack of higher-order thinking skills. Threats to education include a lack of understanding of the context, threatening academic integrity, perpetuating discrimination in education, democratising plagiarism, and declining high-order cognitive skills. We provide agenda for educational practice and research in times of ChatGPT.