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from the ai-will-teach...your-children-well dept.
Under the fluorescent lights of a fifth grade classroom in Lexington, Kentucky, Donnie Piercey instructed his 23 students to try and outwit the "robot" that was churning out writing assignments:
The robot was the new artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, which can generate everything from essays and haikus to term papers within seconds. The technology has panicked teachers and prompted school districts to block access to the site. But Piercey has taken another approach by embracing it as a teaching tool, saying his job is to prepare students for a world where knowledge of AI will be required.
"This is the future," said Piercey, who describes ChatGPT as just the latest technology in his 17 years of teaching that prompted concerns about the potential for cheating. The calculator, spellcheck, Google, Wikipedia, YouTube. Now all his students have Chromebooks on their desks. "As educators, we haven't figured out the best way to use artificial intelligence yet. But it's coming, whether we want it to or not."
The article goes on to describe different exercises Piercey uses and comments from other teachers who are using ChatGPT to enhance their lessons.
[...] The fifth graders seemed unaware of the hype or controversy surrounding ChatGPT. For these children, who will grow up as the world's first native AI users, their approach is simple: Use it for suggestions, but do your own work.
Previously:
- Seattle Public Schools Bans ChatGPT; District 'Requires Original Thought and Work From Students'
- ChatGPT Arrives in the Academic World
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ilsa on Wednesday February 22 2023, @10:56PM
I think this is a good approach to technologies like ChatGPT. We need to teach kids how unreliable and untrustworthy it is.
ChatGPT can do amazing things when you provide narrowly confined requirements, but using it for anything else is outright dangerous because it is the ultimate echo chamber. It will tell you exactly what you want to hear, and will generate exactly what you want it to generate.
Clarksworld is just the first high-profile casualty thanks to how easy ChatGPT is to abuse, and things are going to get a hell of a lot worse. I'm waiting for when critical scientific journals are flooded with garbage papers. It's impossible to have reasonable discourse when truth itself can be DDOS'ed, and all generations up till now are not equipped to deal with this massive reality shift. Critical thinking skills have now become even more important than ever.
Unfortunately I'm pretty sure this kind of teaching will get banned in regions that are offended by critical thinking, because it's impossible to learn this kind of approach and not apply it generally (as it should be). Corrupt politicians need to be able to manipulate the masses, after all.