How ChatGPT robs students of motivation to write and think for themselves

That ship already sailed wihen copy and paste came to town.

quote: These include whether AI, more generally, threatens student writing skills, the value of writing as a process, and the importance of seeing writing as a vehicle for thinking.

People have had similar concerns about typewriters, ghostwriting, the group-writing used for some TV shows, editing (Jane Austen), the introduction of kana, the use of Romaji, the spread of literacy and the invention of printing.

Even professional writers use dictionaries, thesauruses, their electronic equivalents, and Google/Wikipedia to fact check. But what they write is (unless they are plagiarising) what they want to say. And most rewrite in repeated proofing. This is what they value and often, why they write.

Tech can now offer people things to say that they would not think to on their own. That will have uses for people suffering from dementia related illnesses. It's not all negative.

It may also allow lazy/thick people to appear less lazy/thick. But when you meet them, the truth will out. Perhaps they will be too lazy to bother to use it. Ultimately, it isn't much different from adopting the opinions and phrase of parents (which many do subconsciously), believing and parroting politicians, or copying and pasting from Wikipedia.

Companies may encourage their staff to use AI like this, if they are working at home.

I'm sure some rascals will find ways to hack and manipulate these AI systems. That might be amusing.

I have been using chatGPT and it generates some good answers, but, some wrong ones too, too vague, or not correct, the interesting thing is that if we write back, tell GPT that it was a wrong answer, it is humble, acknowledge and rectify its statement.

GPT is the best thing that happened since Google Search launch, over 20 years ago.

For a beginning, it is very impressive.

In general, one old lesson in computers is "garbage in, garbage out", as internet, is not good or evil by itself. GPT generated texts have a style that can be identified with a closer look. Writing style is something human, we can feed entire dictionaries with all existing words in the world, but only humans can create innovative words, attribute new meanings, and language is not only typed words, voice intonation, accent, body language are essential for proper communication.

Some of the most important achievements of an education come when we accept a challenge and do something new, something that we haven't done before. If and when we turn over the challenges of education to a writing algorithm, we do ourselves a great disservice. If we do not acquire the skill of learning in school, when will we ever gain that ability? Our brains gain little for future use from learning how to tell a computer program how to pretend that it is writing for us.

Algorithms and AI are not the same. That would be a good start to a better article and understanding by the writer.

ChatGPT combines an Internet search engine with an algorithm to write the results. The Internet is awash with false and incomplete information, so the “garbage in-garbage out” rule still applies. True intelligence can discern garbage, false facts, false conclusions or faulty reasoning.

Ranking the validity of the search results based on the reputation of the source, such as a newspaper versus a blog, doesn’t guarantee accuracy. If you’ve ever witnessed an event, then read press reports about it, you know what I mean.

What about high level information that isn’t on the Internet? It’s written on a piece of paper on someone’s desk.

And what level of intelligence is being exhibited? The intelligence of someone with an 85 IQ?

Writing is easy. Children are conditioned to write differently than they speak. Learn to speak, then write like you speak. And use periods often.

I can appreciate the value of grammar and punctuation programs. The user learns from the results.

Algorithms and AI are not the same.

Incorrect. AI is the implementation of an algorithm, as all programs are. It's just a more complex algorithm than say the one used to build the comment form on JT. But it's the implementation of an algorithm regardless.

And what level of intelligence is being exhibited? The intelligence of someone with an 85 IQ?

IQ is a quantifier of intelligence in intelligence comparing one's score no a test to the average score of a person of their age. As such, AI is not really able to have its intelligence quantified by IQ, as it would be relative to a human, and AIs only have a narrow range of functionality. At best, AI would be an idiot savant, a complete idiot at most human things, and a savant in the area for which it was defined.

ChatGPT could only muster a C in law school tests, but humans averaged B. A mediocre lawyer.