A Debate on ChatGPT: Helpful or Harmful?

A look into US college students’ point of views on the uprising of Chatbots in schools. 

“I couldn’t live without it,” said Elisabeth Ford, a rising senior at Hofstra University, when talking about her experience with artificial intelligence chatbots. “It's like, you have almost a person with you, an expert with you all the time. And you're able to ask any single question, and then all of a sudden, you get a very articulate and intelligent response within a matter of seconds.” 

Artificial intelligence has become a large conversation in the world of education across the globe. A program called ChatGPT (Generated Pre-trained Transformer) was introduced to the public in late November of 2022 by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research company headquartered in San Francisco, California. According to the service itself, its “main purpose is to simulate natural language conversations with users and provide helpful and informative responses to their questions and requests.” 

However, there has been evidence to show that some students have been taking advantage of this program in order to perform better in school. A number of high schools and colleges across the United States have even begun to implement policies into their academic honor codes that ban the use of any AI programs, like ChatGPT. 

According to a recent survey conducted by BestColleges, about 50% of college students feel that using AI programs like ChatGBT counts as cheating or plagiarism. However, of the 43% of students who have used these systems, half said to have used them for help on school assignments. 

Clearly, there is a change that is taking place across schools due to the rise in artificial intelligence chatbots. 

“We know there are students using it, of course,” said Hingham High School (located in Hingham, Massachusetts) history teacher, Christina O’Connor, “however, the school has yet to make any policy changes. I would not be surprised to see some in our near future, though.” The probable cheating that is going on through the school is a difficult challenge to get around, O'Connor believes. With the technology available to students these days, catching false work can be quite difficult. Really the best the school can do at the moment is prevent the website from being used on the school’s wifi. 

As of right now Hingham High School’s student handbook does not include any information on artificial intelligence chatbots. There are no school wide rules prohibiting the use of these programs. These programs are creating more difficult issues for teachers across the country to work through in order to maintain academic integrity between their student bodies. 

If students are using ChatGPT unethically in highschool with no repercussions, this could cause concern for colleges in the future. More and more incoming students may be used to relying on chatbots and other artificial intelligence systems for their assignments, making education less about the learning and more about the process of just getting things done. 

That being said, there are a great deal of students who say they use it as a mere way to help them get started with assignments they are struggling with. They find that it is just that small push they need to get their work done as well as possible. 

Elisabeth Ford feels that this technology has become an extremely helpful and beneficial tool as she completes her work for college.

“I cannot lie,” Ford said, “I have used it for school if I can't think of something. As a college student you have a lot of work. And so, if I can't think of anything coherent in the moment and, say, I need to get something done quickly, I will go to ChatGPT and ask the question. It'll help me provoke my own thoughts. It's a great tool to be able to get thoughts moving.”

Ford never uses chatbot programs to write her work for her, she only uses it as a stepping stone to get her in the right direction. It is as if she is conversing with someone and bouncing ideas off them in order to get her mind flowing, but instead of a person it is ChatGBT. 

But, Ford’s major requires her already to be fairly proficient at writing. What about the students who struggle with it? If there is a tool out there that can help them with their writing, so that they can match up to the students who are naturally gifted writers, should they be deprived of it?

A student who attends Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts for theater education (who has asked to remain anonymous) claims to use ChatGPT “all the time.” As the semester approaches its end, this student has started to feel quite burnt out. Having ChatGPT at their disposal has allowed them to free themselves of some of the stress that comes with end of the year assignments. “I've had it write me, basically full essays, but I don't copy the whole thing. I'll change the wording,” they said. 

Getting papers done for school is one of this student’s more difficult tasks to complete, as they often find themselves struggling with writing, and having ChatGBT at their disposal has allowed for them to work quicker, knowing that the writing sounds clear and concise.

Due to the fact that most of their assignments are based on information from centuries ago, this student isn’t concerned about the fact that ChatGPT only has stored information up to 2021, leaving out updated statistics and current news from its algorithms. After the chatbot wrote the essay, the Suffolk student explained that they go through the text to make sure everything is accurate, as to be sure they are not submitting false information for their assignment. 

However, this use of chatbots can be seen as unfair to the students who are doing everything on their own, from the research to the writing. 

“I do feel like that it’s kind of like cheating in a way,” said Nina Evans, a rising junior literary studies major at The New School. Evans is constantly writing for school and believes the use of programs like ChatGPT should be restricted in school settings. “I understand that not everybody's good at writing. And I feel for that,” she said, “but, I think that doesn't really help you learn the skill at all, so it's kind of a temporary reliance on a tool, rather than it actually helping you become a better writer.” 

Evans said that she finds it unfair that some students are using AI chatbots to do their assignments for them when other students are putting in all the time and work to get it done on their own. The amount of workload for the students changes based on the use of these programs and creates an unequal playing field. 

Similar to Evans, another student who attends The New School finds the use of ChatGPT in schools an unethical practice. Tess Driscoll, a dance student, believes that when students use the system to help them with essays and other assignments that it is “the same as having someone else write [their] essay.” 

Driscoll has never used ChatGBT herself out of fear and concerns with the program. “I don't know what they're doing with whatever information I'm giving them,” she said, “then they're coming up with information and I don't know where that's coming from or where it's going.” 

The concerns that Driscoll fears are some that are often overlooked by many students. Based on what students have shared about their experiences with ChatGBT, it seems as though many students choose to believe in the program automatically, without fear of where the information is actually coming from. After being informed that the ChatGPT system is only updated with information up to 2021, many of the students said they were not aware of the fact, meaning that any of them could have been given out of date data without their knowledge. 

The question of “should ChatGPT be allowed in schools” continues to present itself as a difficult one. There are many ways the service can be beneficial to education when taught about strategically and used carefully. As the systems program is updated and the artificial intelligence knowledge expands, it could provide great tools and experiences to be used in classrooms worldwide.

However, when used irresponsibly, it can cause issues for everyone involved. As the service develops further and becomes smarter, there comes with it a world of unknown possibilities. It is difficult for anyone to predict exactly what will happen in a future of artificial intelligence. 

OpenAI has spoken about their goals for the future of the AGI (artificial general intelligence) systems. They believe that someday soon the programs will know more than humans do. Gaining that power and information from AI bots like ChatGPT could create major steps in education, allowing for further advancements in human knowledge and learning in schools. But, if students do not actually pay attention to the information they are receiving from these services, are they really learning? While these programs have the opportunity to make education more accessible, they also have the potential of devaluing the use of universities in the future.

The world is in a spot of unanswerable questions when it comes to artificial intelligence. These services are still extremely new to a point that even the creators can not say exactly what is to be expected from them. Many believe that it is important for the public to stay weary of the issues that may arise with ChatGBT and other bots. Others feel open to a world of new knowledge and greater educational advancements with eager excitement.

Maybe there is a future where tests and assignments will return mainly to paper in order to prohibit the use of chatbot cheating or where every student's computer screen is monitored to ensure they are completing honest work. Ultimately, decisions within university administrations will have to go toward the protection of their students, their faculty, and their educational values, whether that be through the banning of AI programs like ChatGBT, or better implementing them into their schools course work with ethical policies and tactics.