ChatGPT is an AI-powered tool that is capable of handling a variety of tasks, such as writing reports, summaries, codes, and performing calculations. ChatGPT and other AI-powered writing tools have proven to be a blessing for students worldwide.
However, using ChatGPT has stirred up many controversies and debates. Many educators believe that using ChatGPT harms academic integrity and reduces the thinking capacity of students.
Today we will be talking about ChatGPT and other related topics such as:
- What is ChatGPT?
- Positives of ChatGPT
- Negatives of ChatGPT
- Best practices for using ChatGPT
What is ChatGPT?
Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, popularly known as ChatGPT, is an AI-powered natural language processing tool.
It was launched on November 30, 2022, by OpenAI. ChatGPT employs a human-like tone and analyzes data, statistics, and trends.
ChatGPT uses artificial intelligence to understand the prompts and returns the most relevant and coherent data in a structured form.
It is available in most countries, including but not limited to India, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Brazil, and Mexico.
However, it’s restricted to countries like North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, some African countries, Cuba, and Syria.
Positives of using ChatGPT
Using ChatGPT helps save time and reduces stress. Students can use this tool to facilitate their learning. They can use ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. to generate ideas, find topics, solve equations, and others.
The positive aspects of using ChatGPT are:
- It can help students brainstorm ideas for their essays.
- It can help students to organize their thoughts. This feature helps students to maintain clarity in their essays.
- ChatGPT helps students stay focused on the topic while providing them with ample examples and sources.
- ChatGPT can provide suggestions for grammar and vocabulary. It can also suggest different phrasing of words that will make the essay more impactful.
- Students can also adjust the tone, get pointers, and implement AI-generated ideas in their work.
- ChatGPT can explain complex topics to students easily. It will provide the gist of a concept in easily understandable points for all students.
- ChatGPT can improve the overall quality of your work.
- Tools like ChatGPT help students cultivate ideas.
- Students can use ChatGPT to create an outline of the thesis or essay. This feature helps to organize the structure, flow of arguments, and focal point of the work.
- Students use ChatGPT to get ideas about the title of the essay.
Negatives of using ChatGPT
Though ChatGPT comes with many benefits, there are some negatives attached to using ChatGPT. Sometimes it makes the job too easy for the students. It can also be argued that ChatGPT also reduces the thinking and reasoning capabilities of the students.
The negative aspects of using ChatGPT are:
- It encourages students to break the rules and cheat. They can use ChatGPT or other AI-powered tools to answer their exam questions and write their essay or thesis.
- Using ChatGPT reduces the student’s critical thinking capabilities, practice of reading, and problem-solving skills.
- As ChatGPT provides ideas in the form of prompts, it reduces the student’s creativity.
- As ChatGPT removes the need for researching, it leads the students to become lazy.
- Studies have shown that using AI tools like ChatGPT leads to a decline in memory retention.
- The teachers cannot evaluate students’ skills if they use ChatGPT to write their answers and essays or even solve mathematical equations.
- As mentioned earlier, ChatGPT is not available in many countries like North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, etc. This means that not every student can use ChatGPT.
Best Practices of using ChatGPT
The best practices for using ChatGPT are:
- You must maintain originality and academic integrity.
- Verify all information, data, and statistics.
- ChatGPT’s ideas must be acknowledged.
- ChatGPT or other AI tools must only be used to supplement your knowledge.
The Conclusion
ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools have revolutionized almost all fields, including academia. It is used by students and teachers alike.
With the introduction of ChatGPT in the academic circle, a lot of questions are being asked. We have to find a way to integrate ChatGPT with conventional educational practices.
The best parts of using ChatGPT are that it reduces stress, helps generate ideas, provides summaries, and solves equations. It helps students understand difficult concepts and improves the overall quality of work.
However, there are some negatives to using ChatGPT like it reduces students’ thinking capacity and creativity. It makes them lazy and reduces their recall capacity.
