ChatGPT Goes to College

By Isabelle Guthrie | Published May 3, 2023

What if you had a technology that could write your papers for you and you don’t have to worry about paying anyone else to do it? Well, that technology exists and is called Chat GPT.  

ChatGPT is a pre-trained generative chat, which makes use of Natural Language Processing (NLP). The source of its data is textbooks, websites, and various articles, which it uses to model its own language for responding to human interaction, according to an article called What is ChatGPT—What is it Used For? by Kevin Pocock

ChatGPT can answer questions naturally in a more conversational tone versus a robot tone like Siri, for example. It also can write code, an article or blog post, a story/poem, translate, and debug, according to Pocock. 

There is a website called OpenAI that introduces ChatGPT and includes a button you can click on to try it out. There is also information explaining its limitations and including some sample questions you can ask it.  

Since this new technology came out, students have used it to see how well it works. Some students haven’t heard of this new technology, but are immediately interested after finding out what it can do.

Aleisha Lewis, a Kean University junior and marketing major, heard about ChatGPT in her classes and on the news. However, she wasn’t sure how it worked until recently. 

“I think it could be a useful tool for anyone who wants to save time/money or needs specific and accurate information on an everyday basis without human error,” Lewis said. 

Anthony Ravelle, a Kean junior and global business major, has heard of it and used it. He was very surprised at how efficient it is. 

“ChatGPT is insane. You can ask it virtually anything and within seconds it is able to generate a page response of a detailed description of what you’ve asked. It is very fast and it is able to do things that take us hours to do, in seconds,” Ravelle said.

There are some concerns about how professors would feel about this AI and if they would allow students to use it. Meghan Gill, adjunct professor in the communication, media, and journalism department, has used it and is more open-minded to this AI. 

“I have used it before and I downloaded the app. I think for us, the academic world, it presents a challenge but also an opportunity. The evolution of AI is so quick. Everyday is a new possibility that it is difficult for us to process. It’s a double-edged sword, I would say. But I always look at these as an opportunity rather than with fear,” said Gill. 

Gill also stated that she would let students use it, but with certain guidelines.

“Absolutely I would allow students to use it, but I would want to have set guidelines or rules of its usage. I would love students to give critical responses to the responses from ChatGPT,” Gill said. 

With students possibly using ChatGPT for assignments, there are solutions for professors, who wouldn’t allow it to be used, to make sure they are not using the AI.

Turnitin is one of those solutions that usually checks for plagiarism and can now detect AI-assisted writing and AI writing, according to Turnitin’s website. 

This gives professors some relief when assigning essays or any writing assignments to students, however, Ravelle stated otherwise with Turnitin being able to detect AI. 

“See, I know people say that Turnitin checks for ChatGPT, but the thing is it can’t. I know people personally who have used ChatGPT and submitted an assignment and didn’t get caught by the system for cheating,” Ravelle said. “This program is all Artificial Intelligence, which means that the response generated will constantly change and it will never be the same.”

ChatGPT may be a great tool in some cases, but there is also a big downside as to what the AI can cause now and in the future. 

There is a fear of students thinking what is the point of learning grammar, citing sources, the writing process, etc. when they have this new AI? How would they truly learn to communicate their ideas in writing effectively? 

Lewis stated that there is a possibility that it may even take out jobs, just like other new AI technologies. 

“Yes, unfortunately it may take out some jobs, but there has to be some kind of way for people to still be able to express their thoughts and feelings without it being completely computer-generated. Otherwise, what is the point of learning literature and composition in school or any research class?” Lewis said. 

It wouldn’t be fair for students studying in journalism wanting to become a writer and they put in the work, when there is this new technology that does the work for you in seconds.

Rachelle Menguito, a junior and communications major, however, stated that it is definitely a possibility for AI to take the place of journalists but it lacks having any real emotions or real-life experiences as a human would.

“Honestly, it’s a scary thought to think so many people can lose their jobs because of AI. Though it’s definitely a possibility, even for journalism or any sort of writing position, one thing ChatGPT lacks are personal thoughts or opinions on topics that only humans can give,” said Menguito.

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