The Case for AI in Education

Despite being released for public consumption for less than 50 days, ChatGPT has already surpassed 1 million users, faster than it took successful business like Instagram and Spotify to do the same. Behind these flashy metrics, however, is a business model predicated on building a product to “ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.” What does this mean for the ethical use of technology in public schools, and how can both teachers and students stand to benefit from generational breakthroughs in technologies like ChatGPT and the emergence of powerful Large Language Models (LLM)?

Regulation on Technology in Public Schools

There are a few pieces of legislation that pertain to students’ internet use in public school settings.

• The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA): This requires children under 13 to have a parent or guardian create an account for them. In a school setting, a teacher would be required to make an account for a student only with the permission of a parent/guardian, as outlined in FERPA.
• The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA): Schools and libraries are required to follow federal guidelines around the creation of an internet safety policy. “The protection measures must block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene; (b) child pornography; or (c) harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors).” If they do this, they are able to receive discounted broadband internet.

In short, schools are are given little federal guidance on the route they should take when it comes to the access and use of technology in classes. This leaves school districts on their own to make decisions regarding the use of AI in academic settings. Earlier this month, the New York City Department of Education banned access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a move blocking both students and teachers from accessing the popular chatbot. Many cite concerns over plagiarism as an impetus for the decision, while others argue that fears over plagiarism are the symptom of a larger ailment. In a piece in Chalkbeat New York, “Adam Stevens, a longtime New York City history teacher” states that “We’ve trained a whole generation of kids to pursue rubric points and not knowledge…and of course, if what matters is the point at the end of the semester, then ChatGPT is a threat.”

AI in Education is Not a Zero-Sum Game

If used within reason, students and teachers can both benefit from artificial intelligence and chatbot systems like ChatGPT, an example of artificial general intelligence. Yes, there will be students who cheat using ChatGPT to write essays. But is it really worth sacrificing the potential for a watershed moment in the access to information for a set of misaligned values with respect to plagiarism and educational outcomes? (re: Adam Stevens quote). For starters, ChatGPT-3 does not list sources, and certainly does not output text that is comparable to academic writing. An even stronger argument, though, is that the same LLMs that power chatbots like ChatGPT can also be used to detect text generated by an AI-powered chatbot. For example, Princeton student built an app called GPTZero, which detects if text was generated by ChatGPT. All this is to say that AI is already on its way to becoming the next generational platform, like cloud computing, social media, and mobile before it. The upside? It could be the biggest mover in education than any of its predecessors.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about some of the most useful applications of AI in education. Like the internet that preceded it, artificial intelligence will create an entire ecosystem of startups on its (probably multiple) platforms.

• Students: Generative assessments based on LLM (personalized learning)
• Teachers: Net productivity increase — AI completion of administerial tasks (lesson planning, emailing, parent/teacher/administrator document shuffling, grading). Resulting in more time spent in-person with students!

I guess you could call this my thesis on the state of education technology as we enter 2023. Forget NFT grifts and metaverse app ecosystems. Artificial intelligence will shape the future of learning.

This post was intially published as a part of the Penn State Presidential Leadership Academy. Its contents do not represent The Pennsylvania State University or the Penn State Presidential Leadership Academy

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