LETTER | Let’s harness ChatGPT for education

LETTER | Stephen Hawking once famously shared his ominous warning, “ …we cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI or ignored by it and side-lined, or conceivably destroyed by it”.

While we want AI (artificial intelligence) to match human “intelligence” as soon as possible, we question its grip on human potential.

The AI-powered ChatGPT performed “professional tasks” such as writing software code and preparing legal documents; and scored better than many students on MBA examinations at the University of Pennsylvania, United States.

As it stands now, ChatGPT is banned in New York city schools, and blocked for students by the Queensland Department of Education until it could be fully "assessed for appropriateness". There are more on that list.

Clearly, many have a big “No” for the ChatGPT. For others, it is an opportunity to divulge new dimensions in the education industry. Referring to the current ChatGPT as a demo version, Sam Altman the CEO of OpenAI in an interview with the Guardian, professed, “Soon you will be able to have helpful assistants that talk to you, answer questions, and give advice.”

More pervasive

Clearly, the chatbot is not going to disappear. Rather, it will be more and more intelligent, powerful, and hence, more pervasive in professional applications. The current and future generations will be more dependent on it as the days will pass. In academia, we have to find ways to deal with it then.

Any components that can be completed by the students “at home” or with open access to the internet need to be relooked to adjust to the AI-powered digital era. Plagiarism check on thesis or report writing such as in the literature review section may also need to be redefined. Whether the texts in those sections are composed using ChaTGPT might come into consideration for evaluation.

We know that the ChatGPT (the demo version) does not provide any references in the text it produces in response to a query from the user. But adding that feature might be just a matter of time.

With the evolving ChatGPT, the approach to evaluating the 21st-century skills of a student might have arrived at a crossroads. Analytical ability, problem-solving, and critical thinking remain the 21st-century education goal. Arguably, objective type of questions is not always enough to evaluate those 21st-century skills. Reintroducing long essay questions during an examination might be useful to evaluate such skills.

Potential approach

Another possible approach could be evaluating the student’s ability to ask the most appropriate what, why, and/or how in a given scenario and that can be used to evaluate their potential in demonstrating analytical, problem-solving, and critical thinking ability.

In other words, instead of lecturers asking students to identify, explain, and describe critical components of a certain scenario; students will be asked to devise both questions and answers from that given scenario that are critical to identify, explain, and describe those components.

This potential approach will have its challenge to provide the answer scheme for a fair evaluation. That means the lecturers have to come up with a list of possible critical questions in the answer scheme which may not be exhaustive in some cases.

Apart from the theoretical assessment, in the applied field, the advent of ChatGPT could be harnessed to devise evaluation schemes for practical or applied skills. For example, in clinical practice, along with the physical examinations, a medical examination report is important for an appropriate diagnosis.

Often a second opinion is sought. It is not unlikely that in the near future, ChatGPT might act as a source of a second opinion for clinicians to diagnose or prescribe a treatment plan. Hence, students’ ability to use ChatGPT in extracting the second “expert” opinion could be a possible component of the evaluation.

Nevertheless, no matter how we try to adopt ChatGPT, a number of professions that require writing or editing texts such as desk journalism are at the edge to face powerful AI competitors. This might prompt the academicians to review their curriculum in the related fields considering future needs.

In summary, a critical and organised scepticism about ChatGPT might help identify new avenues to harness the advantage of advanced AI in the education industry.

MOHAMMAD TARIQUR RAHMAN is associate dean (continuing education) at the Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Malaya.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.