The AI-powered program ChatGPT and its capacity to churn out answers and essays like they were written by a human, may have wowed the public in recent weeks. However, the New York City school system is no fan.
The city’s Department of Education has decided to block access to the AI chatbot over fears the same technology can ruin learning for students, according to Chalkbeat New York, which was first to report the news.
“Due to concerns about negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content, access to ChatGPT is restricted on New York City Public Schools’ networks and devices,” the department said in a statement to PCMag. “While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success.”
The only exception to the block is for schools that request access to ChatGPT for the purposes of AI and technology-related education, a spokesperson for the department added.
ChatGPT is a free program from San Francisco-based research lab OpenAI. The chatbot has been trained to replicate text-based human conversations. Hence, you can ask the program to tell you a joke, write a song about a specific topic, produce computer code, or explain something, like a scientific theory and the causes of World War I.
The problem is that it’s easy for any student to abuse ChatGPT to cheat on written homework assignments. With a simple query, you can ask the program to write essays on books, movies, and historical events. The result may not always be accurate, nor can ChatGPT handle complex or niche topics. But the AI-powered program can produce understandable essays that could get a passing grade in class.
So it’s no surprise teachers are growing concerned about ChatGPT’s potential to disrupt learning. The Washington Post spoke to one student who used the program to help him cheat on homework assignments for a computer science class. College professors have also been catching their students exploiting the program too.
The New York City’s Department of Education is responding by blocking the program from the school system’s network. But of course, students will still be able to access ChatGPT outside class or through their own smartphones. So the problem may not go away anytime soon for educators.
However, OpenAI said it's working on "mitigations" to prevent students from abusing ChatGPT for cheating purposes. "We made ChatGPT available as a research preview to learn from real-world use, which we believe is a critical part of developing and deploying capable, safe AI systems. We are constantly incorporating feedback and lessons learned," the lab said.
"We don’t want ChatGPT to be used for misleading purposes in schools or anywhere else, so we’re already developing mitigations to help anyone identify text generated by that system. We look forward to working with educators on useful solutions, and other ways to help teachers and students benefit from artificial intelligence," OpenAI added.