A few days back my daughter was sharing her problems, of writing for a client. She was unable to satisfy the requirement of the Clients writing and rewriting an article. My suggestion was to use Chat GPT to enhance her article. Which she had already done. That got me to thinking how AI has become the buzzword for everything, and how it is pervading the education world in general.

Unimaginative teachers want to block students from using AI writers like ChatGPT. This is as misguided as telling students they can’t use spell-checkers. ChatGPT and similar systems are tools, and students will use these tools, as will the real-world writers.

Consider the analogous problem of the invention of the calculator. Is it okay for kids growing up to not learn basic arithmetic because calculators can easily do what we used to do manually? Or do kids today still need to be taught and learn to do those basic computations manually as a foundation for dealing with problems that have a quantitative component, even though thanks to calculators in real life they won’t need to do those basic arithmetic calculations manually outside of school?

If your job is to do what a machine can do just as well or better, you’ll soon be out of a job. Nobody is tightening screws on an assembly line, setting blocks of type on a printing press, or doing math calculations with a pencil anymore. Instead, we are maintaining robotic assembly lines, designing type laid out by software, and building clever calculations in spreadsheets. Conversely, we need to teach people to use the tools effectively. You can stand hip-deep on the beach and try and fight the tide. Or you can learn to swim and use it to carry you where you want to go.

I was one of the beta testers of Chat GPT and had a lot of fun using it. I cannot claim to be an expert, but I would like to share my thoughts and insights which I derived from it. The ChatGPT model is a large language model trained by OpenAI that is capable of generating human-like text. By providing it with a prompt, it can generate responses that continue the conversation or expand on the given prompt.

ChatGPT, like all generative AI systems, is a tool. Tools are used by humans to accomplish specific tasks. Thinking of it that way helps unlock its potential, but also avoid its pitfalls. ChatGPT is far from the all-knowing AI that the movies taught us to expect. But as a tool to jumpstart your own writing, multiply your productivity, and to help overcome the inertia associated with staring at a blank page, it is amazing.

ChatGPT is not a search engine like google or Alexa, and it is certainly not a human that you give instructions to. It is a machine you are programming with words. You are writing a prompt, not having a conversation. Essentially you are typing instructions (prompts) to the AI, and it is learning to do what you are asking it to do. It searches the Net for the keywords and come out with results. So, if the information it has accessed is incorrect, then you will get incorrect results.

I think most people who are using ChatGPT to help with writing or their assignments, are doing it wrong. I don’t just mean because they are using it to cheat on work or school assignments or because they don’t check the facts that ChatGPT gives (they might be made up), but because they have the wrong mental model for how to work with the system.

For example: Don’t ask it for facts that you can’t easily check. Don’t ask it to provide references. Don’t have it do math or conduct analysis. It will happily fake doing these things for you and the output will mostly likely be wrong. Also, Because ChatGPT often acts like a helpful human, I got lured into thinking it is one. I constructed my prompts like I would to another colleague at work, saying “please” and “thank you” in my requests, even though the AI doesn’t care.

To effectively use Chat GPT or other AI tools we need to learn to use them and also teach the students to use it effectively. For example, don’t ask it to write an essay about “How leaders are Selected”.  The AI will come up with a boring and straightforward piece that does the minimum possible to satisfy your simple demand. Instead, remember you are the expert, and the AI is a tool to help you write. You should push it in the direction you want. For example, the successive prompts will improve the results

1. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on selecting leaders
2. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on how leaders are selected by teams
3. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on how leaders are selected by teams and how team process works
4. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on how leaders are selected by teams, team process, and leadership ability.
5. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on how leaders are selected by teams, team process, and leadership ability, 250 words.

Note that each successive iteration will give better results, but the results will still be mediocre and feeling rather vapid. The results can be further improved by using more specific prompts and using your own knowledge on the topic to steer the AI in the direction you want. For example, if we use the following prompt for the same

1. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on selecting leaders
2. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on selecting leaders, cover the babble hypothesis, leader status effects, and seniority
3. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on selecting leaders, cover the babble hypothesis, leader status effects, and seniority. Explain that the babble effect is that whoever talks the most is made leader.
4. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on selecting leaders, cover the babble hypothesis, leader status effects, and seniority. Explain that the babble effect is that whoever talks the most is made leader. Use examples. Use vivid language and take the perspective of a management consultant who has gone back for her MBA. Write for a professor in an MBA class on team strategy and entrepreneurship.
5. Generate a 5-paragraph essay on selecting leaders, cover the babble hypothesis, leader status effects, and seniority. Explain that the babble effect is that whoever talks the most is made leader. Consider the challenges and advantages of each approach. Use examples. Use active tense and storytelling. Use vivid language and take the perspective of a management consultant who has gone back for her MBA. Write for a professor in an MBA class on team strategy and entrepreneurship.

Each successive prompt will give better results. Note that we have used prompts which ask specific matters to be included (Babble Effect), specified style (Vivid language), specific setup (MBA class), or even playacting (Management consultant). However, to further improve the results by using a more complicated prompt: use an academic tone. use at least one clear example; Include anecdotes; make it concise; write for a well-informed audience; use a style like the person from Delhi. make it at least 7 paragraphs. vary the language in each one. end with a cheerful note.

More elaborate and specific prompts work better.

So, try asking for it to be concise or wordy or detailed or ask it to be specific or to give examples. Ask it to write in a tone (ominous, academic, straightforward) or to a particular audience (professional, student) or in the style of a particular author or publication ( Navbharat times, tabloid news, academic journal).

You can ask the AI to use specific styles for writing. You will get different results from asking for an academic essay versus a persuasive article versus a blog post versus a corporate memo. 

Another way to get interesting writing out of ChatGPT is by asking the AI to be someone else. You can have the AI play characters by prompting it to think of itself as a chef, or a novelist, or any character in movie/book/history. You can ask it to write about Newtons law of gravity acting as Archimedes. Or ask it to give the perspective of Indian election while thinking itself as Raj Kapoor’s Awara character. So, lots of fun can be had, and the above examples are one I played around with. One can come up with entertaining stories that are engaging, imaginative and captivating for the audience. It can be fairy tales, educational stories or any other type of stories which has the potential to capture people’s attention and imagination.

The focus is on learning to use AI creatively, engineering good prompts, checking facts, and documenting the tools you use. These are the skills students (and everyone) needs, so they belong in any class that requires analytical thinking and writing. It is time to embrace AI and learn to use it effectively.

You are not going to get perfect results, so experimenting (and using the little “regenerate response” button) will help you get to the right place. Over time, you will start to learn the “language” that ChatGPT is using.

Although AI is the way of the future, but it does come with ethical questions and need prudence before implementation.

Over-reliance on AI tools may diminish the role of human educators, potentially reducing the personalized interaction and mentorship crucial for student development. Balancing the benefits of AI-driven efficiencies with maintaining meaningful human engagement is essential.

In writing, AI tools can assist in generating content, raising concerns about plagiarism, intellectual property rights, and the authenticity of authored work. Clear guidelines and ethical standards are necessary to distinguish between AI-generated content and human-created original work.

AI tools in education could exacerbate inequalities if access to technology and quality AI-driven resources is unevenly distributed among students and institutions. This disparity might widen the gap between privileged and underserved communities, reinforcing existing inequalities rather than mitigating them.

Addressing these ethical considerations requires collaborative efforts among educators, policymakers, technologists, and ethicists. Establishing clear guidelines, promoting transparency, and prioritizing equity can help harness the potential of AI in education and writing while minimizing potential ethical pitfalls.

Ultimately, the ethical deployment of AI should aim to enhance educational experiences, empower learners, and foster a fair and inclusive learning environment. A policy governing the use of AI is the need of the hour and should be formulated sooner rather than later.