Teachers have spent the past few years complaining about ChatGPT’s ability to help students cheat on their assignments. Generative AI can write a college essay or answer a math problem in a fraction of the time, making it a tempting shortcut. Professors have accused — accurately or not — their students of using ChatGPT to complete their assignments.
Education Company Chegg estimates that An estimated 40% of undergraduate students worldwide have used generative AI in their graduate studies, with half of that group using a tool like ChatGPT at least once a day.
But education experts speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore conference on Wednesday believe that nearly two years after OpenAI released ChatGPT, generative AI could now be an asset to teachers, rather than a shortcut for students.
When ChatGPT came out, the “knee-jerk” reaction among teachers was fear that students would start plagiarizing their assignments, says Sunita Jayapathy, co-director of the Centre for Free and Clinical Legal Education at the National University of Singapore. Instead, “we realized we could benefit from[the AI generation]too.”
Khairul Anwar, founder of Malaysian edtech startup Bandi, said teachers are asking AI developers to help with lesson planning, student motivation and professional development.
AI developers are also working on creating apps to help students learn. Pandai has developed a chatbot to help students with their homework, but not to do it for them.
“It’s designed not to give you direct answers, but to give you step-by-step solutions. To ask students themselves… What do you understand now, and what do you think the next step will be?” Anwar said.
But chatbots are just the tip of the iceberg.
“There’s a lot more going on in AI than just big language models,” said Tim Baldwin, provost of MBZUAI. He cited the example of AI being trained to learn how a student learns, then tailoring curriculum to their strengths, expanding access to a personalized learning experience to those who traditionally couldn’t afford it.
Participants agreed that AI-powered cheating is not a new phenomenon.
It’s natural for students to want to get better grades the easy way, Jayapathy said. She noted that a student’s level of motivation and the values of the educational institution are more influential in the decision to cheat than access to any particular AI tool.
Anwar suggested that educators and institutions need to better highlight the value of education, rather than promoting learning as just a means to material comforts. If education is described as a path to a job, a big house and an expensive car, “the message is that this is just a transaction, and students will obviously cheat.”
CEO Daily provides essential context to the news leaders need to know from across the business world. Every weekday morning, more than 125,000 readers trust CEO Daily for insights on and from top executives. Subscribe now.
