ChatGPT and My GPA
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been making waves in the education system in recent years, with a variety of AI tools being developed to assist students and teachers in their studies and work. Many of us have had experiences with AI, whether it be from seeing it in videos or using it ourselves. For students, some of the better-known AIs are Open AI, Quill-Bot, CaktusAI, and even Grammarly, all of which are writing tools to help with making essays clearer and cleaner. These AI tools have the potential to revolutionize the way students learn and complete schoolwork.
AI is great as a tool for revising your writing as a finishing touch. Many students are already using Grammarly to ensure their writing is free of mistakes in grammar, punctuation, etc., and it works great as a plagiarism checker on top of that. Others may use Quill-Bot to rephrase certain words, sentences, or even entire paragraphs. Say you’d like to add context to your essay, but it gets a bit too wordy, is grabbed straight from the source, or is downright plagiarism; with Quill-Bot, you’re able to paraphrase whatever you’d like to make it original. These two popular AIs are writing tools that focus on grammar, vocabulary, and writing assistance, leaving most of the framework to the writer.
Differing from the previous two tools comes CaktusAI. While Caktus can help students improve their writing skills by providing feedback on grammar, style, and sentence structure, much like Grammarly, the main difference is the plethora of options it has. Caktus ai, for example, has options dedicated to different aspects of writing. To begin with, there's the “Essay Typer” option. Here, you simply give it a prompt, and it begins to generate the framework of the essay for you to finish and clean up. Another option is “Discussion Questions,” which can give multiple answers depending on the prompt you type in. When using this option, I typed in an open-ended question, “Is ____ considered unethical?” To this, I was given two answers as to why it was ethical, one answer as to how it could be considered unethical, and an overall summary of the reasons it could go either way with additional information on the topic. Though immensely useful, it may sometimes go in a completely different direction depending on how broad your prompt is.
In an educational environment, students are not alone. Teachers can also use these tools for themselves. AI tools can also provide them with tools to evaluate student work, grade assignments, and provide feedback. This can help save teachers time and effort, allowing them to focus on other important aspects of their job, such as lesson planning and classroom management.
Now there is a reason Open AI, more specifically ChatGPT, wasn’t mentioned previously, and that’s because, from an educational standpoint, this is the most controversial AI. On the one hand, it’s arguably the most useful and advanced AI, being able to answer almost anything you ask it, including essay prompts, giving you hundreds or even thousands of words worth of material. For example, you can ask it to write you an essay consisting of 5 paragraphs for an opinion essay with defensible claims and reasons/evidence to back up said claims, and it will do exactly that. On the other hand, it’s a teacher’s worst nightmare for the exact same reasons. With this, your homework assignments turn into 5-minute tasks on your to-do list, and essays are no longer something you spend hours on but something you have your computer do for you in mere minutes.
Artificial Intelligence is scary, and so is the rate at which it’s improving. No matter how you look at it, AI has the potential to revolutionize the education system. You’ve read about the pros of AI, but what about the cons? While these tools may be helpful, they may also encourage students to rely too heavily on AI assistance rather than developing their own critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Additionally, AI tools may also lead to increased standardization in education. As AI-powered writing tools are based on algorithms, the feedback and suggestions provided to students may be limited to a specific set of rules and guidelines. This could lead to a lack of creativity and originality in student work, as well as a lack of flexibility in the education system. Another potential downside is that these tools may lead to a loss of personalization in education. While AI-powered writing tools can provide feedback and suggestions to students, they may not be able to replicate the personal touch of a human teacher. This could lead to a lack of individualized attention for students, which can be especially detrimental for students who require extra support and guidance.
Overall, AI tools like Open AI, Caktus, and Quillbot have the potential to greatly benefit the education system by improving the writing skills of students and assisting teachers in their work. It's important to use these tools in conjunction with traditional teaching methods and to ensure that all students have access to them. As technology continues to advance, the use of AI in the education system is likely to become increasingly prevalent, and it will be important to find ways to integrate these tools effectively to enhance the learning experience for all students. Though, it’s also important to be aware of the downsides when considering the use of AI tools in the education system. While these tools can provide many benefits, it's important to ensure that they are used in a way that promotes critical thinking, creativity, and individualization in education. AI is not meant to be your personal cheat code for assignments, but merely another form of assistance, much like your teachers and peers. If you still don't understand or underestimate the power of AI, please note that the majority of this article was created by an AI. ChatGPT created the framework, Caktus expanded on some of the topics, quillbot paraphrased, shortened, and cleaned everything up, all while Grammarly worked on fixing any errors in spelling or grammar. 1000 words, 6000 letters, 2 pages, and roughly a tenth of that was my own original writing.
