The world has been stunned by the sophisticated ability of the generative AI tool ChatGPT to complete remarkably complex tasks since its launch on November 30, 2022. ChatGPT is incredibly interactive, capable of holding a human-like conversation on various subjects and producing compelling creative content.
The ChatGPT can perform previously unheard-of tasks that are incredibly complex, such as writing an article, story, poem, or essay; expanding or summarizing a text; changing texts to reflect a different viewpoint; and even creating and debugging original computer code.
Even though this development in AI appears to revolutionize education, educators have mixed feelings about ChatGPT’s extraordinary capacity to carry out difficult tasks.
It has turned into a divisive issue among educators. While some see ChatGPT as the future of education, others are more pessimistic and see it as a threat to most forms of learning and as a way to make teachers and students lazy with weak or nonexistent analytical skills. In this post, we will discuss the pros and cons of ChatGPT in education and training.
Benefits of ChatGPT in Education
1. Personalized Tutoring
Students can receive individualized tutoring and feedback from ChatGPT based on their learning requirements and development. Students can receive individualized math tutoring from a conversational agent built on a generative model (ChatGPT), which enhances learning outcomes. The conversational agent can adjust explanations to students’ comprehension levels and misconceptions.
2. Automated Essay Grading
ChatGPT can be programmed to grade student essays, freeing up teachers’ time to focus on other aspects of the classroom. With a correlation of 0.86 with human grades, a generative model (ChatGPT) trained on a dataset of human-graded essays can accurately grade essays written by high school students. The model can recognize key features of well-written essays and provide feedback comparable to human graders.
3. Language Translation
ChatGPT can translate educational materials into multiple languages, making them more accessible to a wider audience. A generative model (ChatGPT) trained on a dataset of bilingual sentence pairs can translate between languages with high accuracy, achieving state-of-the-art results on several translation benchmarks. The model can comprehend the meaning of sentences in one language and produce accurate translations in another.
4. Interactive Learning
ChatGPT can create interactive learning experiences where students can converse with a virtual tutor. A conversational agent based on a generative model can effectively support students learning English as a second language, leading to improved language proficiency. The agent can understand students’ questions and respond appropriately and appropriately.
5. Adaptive Learning
ChatGPT can design adaptive learning systems that adapt their teaching methods based on the progress and performance of their students. An adaptive learning system based on a generative model (ChatGPT) can help students learn to program more effectively, resulting in better performance on programming assessments. The model can comprehend students’ knowledge and, as a result, adjust the difficulty of the problems it generates. ChatGPT has the potential to be a powerful tool for improving teaching and learning by offering personalized tutoring, automated essay grading, language translation, interactive learning, and adaptive learning.
Possible drawbacks of ChatGPT in education
While there are many potential benefits of using ChatGPT and other generative AI models in education, there are also some drawbacks. Research studies support these drawbacks:
1. Lack of Human Interaction
ChatGPT and other generative models cannot match the level of human interaction a real teacher or tutor provides. This lack of human interaction can harm students who benefit more from a personal connection with their teacher. Students who interact with a virtual tutor who mimics human-like affective behavior may learn more effectively than those who interact with a virtual tutor who lacks this behavior.
2. Limited Understanding
Generative models are based on statistical patterns in the data they are trained on, and they do not truly comprehend the concepts that assist students in learning. This can be an issue when providing explanations or feedback tailored to a student’s specific needs and misconceptions. A tutoring system based on generative models could not provide explanations tailored to students’ misconceptions.
3. Bias in Training Data
Generative models are only as good as the data on which they are trained, and if the training data contains biases, so will the model. Assume a model is trained on a dataset of essays written primarily by students from a specific demographic. In that case, it may be unable to accurately grade essays written by students from other demographics. Gender bias in language generation can be observed in a generative model trained on a large corpus of text from the internet.
4. Lack of Creativity
Generative models can only generate responses based on the patterns in the data they discovered during training, limiting their creativity and originality. A generative model-based music composition system may be limited in generating unique and varied melodies.
5. Dependency on Data
Generative models are trained on large amounts of data, and the model’s quality is highly dependent on the data’s quality and quantity. The model will not perform well if the data is insufficient or irrelevant. A generative model-based question-answering system can perform poorly when the training data is irrelevant to the task.
6. Lack of Contextual Understanding
Generative models cannot comprehend context and situation, resulting in inappropriate or irrelevant responses. In a conversation, a generative model-based dialogue system may be limited in understanding and generating contextually appropriate responses.
7. Limited ability to personalize instruction
ChatGPT and other generative AI models can provide general information and assistance, but they may not be able to personalize instruction to meet the specific needs of a particular student.
8. Privacy
There are concerns about privacy and data security when using ChatGPT and other generative AI models in education. It’s important to remember that while ChatGPT and other generative AI models are useful, they’re not a replacement for human teachers and tutors. Using these tools responsibly and in conjunction with human instruction and support is critical.
While generative AI models such as ChatGPT can be effective tools for improving teaching and learning, it is critical to understand their limitations and use them in conjunction with other teaching methods emphasizing human interaction and understanding.
