ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) is an artificial intelligence chatbot, and it was developed by OpenAI (An AI research development company). ChatGPT’s goal is to generate responses to prompts and questions like a human would. It has been programmed with various data from books, news articles, and other types of media. It can be used for text summarization, answering questions, and language. 

It is a huge step forward for the Natural Language Processing (NLP) field. NLP is a branch computer science, regarding advancing technology and the ability to understand text the same way humans do. 

An additional application of ChatGPT is the ability to create essays, articles, stories, and many other forms of written work. With this, it has become a concern for many schools and teachers. Plagiarism detectors are unable to detect responses from the AI.  

Although the output does not come from one specific person, it is not the student’s own work. Many schools have started putting in rules against using ChatGPT, as they consider it cheating. Many academic professionals consider using text from the AI as no different from directly copying from a source online. 

The written work it creates is readable and is well written and can is released within seconds, but it has problems that students using the program are not aware of. It can contain mistakes with information and can completely make up citations. 

Many schools started banning the use of the site and blocking it from school devices. Another concern from teachers is its effects on students’ reading comprehension and literacy skills.  

Teachers and parents are also concerned about privacy issues for the students using the site. ChatGPT does not verify the age of its users, so they collect the IP addresses and user interactions of children.  

Apps and bots were quickly created to combat students submitting work from ChatGPT. A Princeton University student, Edward Tian, developed an app, GPTZero, which can detect the difference an essay from a human or ChatGPT. 

Many companies, similar to schools, are restricting and banning it from their employees. JPMorgan has restricted it but has not commented on why they have. China has banned the site in fear of it spreading propaganda. 

This is still new to many people, and we are having to come up with new ways to use it to our advantage. This is unfounded territory. 

AI bots like ChatGPT are continuing to advance, and schools, teachers, and students have to advance and change with them. It has immense potential and has many possible benefits to help future generations of students. AI is not going away, and it can be expected to be integrated into classrooms as it can become a helpful tool to the students and teachers.