Is ChatGPT Changing Higher Education: Benefits and Concerns

It is driven not by new textbooks or fancy tools, but by artificial intelligence. ChatGPT, the AI chatbot designed to talk, explain, and write like a human, is now sitting right beside students and teachers across the world. For educators, the tool is equally helpful, as it reduces the time spent on grading and creating quizzes.

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The goal is for customers to contact Verizon once, and for the champion to then provide updates via the My Verizon app, text messages, or call backs. Verizon is trying to streamline its customer service experience by overhauling it with more chatbots and AI tools. Machines look at data, but they can’t take human behaviour or preferences into account.

Just remember to maintain a balanced view of these tools. Most of it won’t be personalized to you, so think of it as a conversation where each follow-up prompt gets you closer to customized advice. You can see an example of this exact advice-related prompt here, and all the follow-up questions I had to ask to drill down to get helpful information. It’s also helpful to come to AI tools with your intention in mind. For example, you could use ChatGPT as a thinking partner or a research aid.

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We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. AS ANYBODY WHO has ever taken a standardised test will know, racing to answer an expansive essay question in 20 minutes or less takes serious brain power. Having unfettered access to artificial intelligence (AI) would certainly lighten the mental load. But as a recent study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggests, that help may come at a cost.

As schools navigate concerns over student abuse of the technology, some are also introducing guidelines and training for educators so teachers are aware of avoiding shortcuts that shortchange students. I’ve tried a range of chatbots across different platforms and even developed my own from scratch using developer sandboxes. Each chatbot was designed with specific language learners or groups in mind, with objectives ranging from broad to highly focused. However, I noticed several key challenges that need to be addressed, beyond privacy and ethical concerns, for AI tutors to evolve from being just one-off activities into effective learning aids. Anthropic’s researchers also noticed that students were asking Claude for direct answers almost half the time with minimal back-and-forth engagement. Researchers described how even when students were engaging collaboratively with Claude, the conversations might not be helping students learn more.

Benefits of ChatGPT in Higher Education

“This highlights a crucial issue in human-AI interaction,” the researchers wrote. “Potential metacognitive laziness.” By that, they mean a dependence on AI assistance, offloading thought processes to the bot and not engaging directly with the tasks that are needed to synthesize, analyze and explain. The idea is that this chatbot service will be able to quickly complete tasks that typically need to be handled by human service reps, providing a more efficient and flexible experience for customers.

• It’s also transformed my weekends and given me a better work-life balance,” said Mary McCarthy, a high school social studies teacher in the Houston area who has used AI tools for help with lesson plans and other tasks.
• These tools are said to transform learning, language learning in particular, by making it more engaging, personalized, adaptive, and inclusive.
• The group that wrote essays using ChatGPT all delivered extremely similar essays that lacked original thought, relying on the same expressions and ideas.
• Perhaps an attacker wants a more discreet outcome, like introducing biases.
• Researchers began by collecting all the conversations over an 18-day period with people who had created Claude accounts using their university addresses.
• Most of it won’t be personalized to you, so think of it as a conversation where each follow-up prompt gets you closer to customized advice.

The original version of this story mischaracterized the way ChatGPT was described in the study. The paper did not leave out which version was used; due to a typo by its authors that will be fixed in forthcoming editions, it erroneously mentioned GPT-4o in one instance. You should always look over the source material AI relies on. Occasionally, it can take details out of context or misinterpret them.

• If you click on Make a plan, you can explore prompts like “make a plan to get a promotion,” “make a plan to buy a new car,” “make a plan of meals for the week” and “make a plan for a weekend in New York.”
• I’ve tried a range of chatbots across different platforms and even developed my own from scratch using developer sandboxes.
• The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers.

I hope we can bring some of the delight, wonder and creative spirit that I first felt using an Apple Computer 30 years ago,” Altman had said. “AI is an incredible technology, but great tools require work at the intersection of technology, design, and understanding people and the world. No one can do this like Jony and his team; the amount of care they put into every aspect of the process is extraordinary,” he added. Educators should maintain their role as mentors, guiding students to think critically and act ethically. ChatGPT should be viewed not as a replacement, but as a tool to enhance learning.

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Human trainers also support more than just learning the theory – and since trades are by definition about applying knowledge through hands-on experience, there’s a lot of value in combining what people and machines each do best. The potential for positive collaboration in artisan training is huge. The truth is that self-motivation for academic learning is a rare quality. Even the most intelligent of us go through our lives ignoring books, websites, and videos that we might learn a great deal from. The particular technology fueling this revolution often changes (e.g., MOOCs, Khan Academy, flipped classrooms, gamified learning). It is currently fueled by AI tutors, admittedly the closest any product has come yet to the vision.

You can send one to me at When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind. This story about how students use AI was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

Open the app or website, and type in your question or prompt. You can use the voice function, attach files and even browse trending topics under Search. You can use ChatGPT as a search engine, much like Google’s home page. Go to chatgpt.com or download the ChatGPT app on Apple’s App Store or on the Google Play Store.