Since ChatGPT was released, many commentators have been sounding the alarm about the takeover of artificial intelligence (AI), suggesting that professors will soon be out of a job, or that student The article is finished.
This is reactionary and misleading. ChatGPT, by its very nature, cannot do the kinds of things we need to do with student essays.
ChatGPT, like other AIs, cannot, and cannot, kick: In the words of the philosopher John Højland, an AI cannot possibly kick, because it does not matter.
However, ChatGPT presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities when it comes to education and assessment—some of which ChatGPT has not so much created as brought forth with new urgency.
In addition to the existing shortcuts facilitated by online tools prior to ChatGPT, students and educators may have lost some of the skills and values that essay writing is intended to foster—namely, judging and punishing.
Does it require educators to rethink and possibly change some of our teaching and assessment practices? Absolutely.
Does ChatGPT signal the death of critical thinking? Quite the opposite.
Let’s first consider the landscape before ChatGPT arrived on the scene. Online text summaries and ready-made analyzes are easily accessible, offering shortcuts to original reading and comprehension.
Such mills are easy to find, and as the Washington Post reports, “Online tests also mean booming business for companies that sell homework and test answers, including Chegg and CourseHero. “
There will always be students who use these shortcuts. Teachers and administrators will do their best to catch them, but some will inevitably get away with it.
However, a truly novel feature of ChatGPT is the speed and ease with which students can take shortcuts to bypass the difficult processes of reading, understanding, thinking and writing.
Previously, students might have had to browse multiple websites or share cloud documents and collate their findings. Now, will do a series of gestures from their smartphone.
But why should speed and ease be the change that makes the difference? The efficiency with which students can now cheat does not warrant claims about the death of the student essay.
These issues predate the advent of ChatGPT. Now they are hard to ignore.
What about the essays that ChatGPT produces?
Yes, ChatGPT can often respond to simple subject prompts, but these subjects have no regard for understanding, judgment or truth. When we asked ChatGPT to explain himself to a group of philosophy students, he readily admits that he “has no understanding of the world, beliefs or moral values.”
This has led some commentators to describe ChatGPT as a “bullshitter” in the philosophical sense of the term: according to philosopher Harry Frankfurt, while a liar must respond to some degree of truth, a bullshitter does not care whether it is true or false. It doesn’t happen. – His “eyes are not at all on the facts.”
The bad guy just makes things up to his own ends as he sees fit.
It’s tempting to view ChatGPT in this light, but it doesn’t go far enough. True, ChatGPT doesn’t care about truth. How can it be?
It’s not just that Chet GPT is a bully with no regard for truth, but that he doesn’t care about anything.
Philosopher Evan Selinger puts this well:
“Open AI cannot create technology that truly cares because it requires consciousness, internal experiences, an independent perspective and emotions. To care, you have to put things in perspective, respect There is a need to offer, take offense when appropriate, and provide friendship.”
This is why ChatGPT, by its very nature, cannot do the kinds of things we need to do with student essays. The “articles” he produces have no sense of truth, no understanding and not even a hint of caring about what is said.
What should we do with the student essay? What writing skills are valuable for students? There are many plausible answers, all of which will vary from classroom to classroom.
But overall, a compelling response has been achieved through what Brian Cantwell-Smith, a philosopher of artificial intelligence, calls judgment—a form of thinking that involves deliberate, open-minded, caring, and responsible action and context. It is in accordance with the context.
Judgment requires that the agent must be situated in a world in general—in other words, taking care of himself in relation to the people and things around him.
As Cantwell Smith writes:
“Only with existential commitment, real stakes, and a passionate commitment to holding things in the world accountable can a system (human or machine) truly… distinguish truth from falsehood, respond appropriately to context and can shoulder the responsibility.”
That is, understanding and judgment be damned—and that’s what teachers and our society need to reflect in student essays.
As Cantwell Smith asks: “Does articulating the concept of judgment inspire us to think about how we might use the advent of AI to raise the standards of what it means to be human?”
What we have discussed here suggests that the answer is a clear and unequivocal yes.
