The Opportunities for AI in education

Since its launch, ChatGPT has experienced widespread global uptake and sustained media attention. Dr Alfred Tiley of The Data Lab Innovation Centre explores its potential in education.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a powerful artificial intelligence (AI)-based chatbot that engages in human-like conversation with users via written text. It was released to the public in November 2022. Since its launch it has experienced widespread global uptake and sustained media attention.

ChatGPT performs very well in many complex tasks including writing code, composing essays, and providing personal tutoring. It has also been shown to achieve excellent results over a wide range of academic exams. Given its capabilities, and with the recent launch of rival chatbots like Google’s Bard and the power of future models set to increase, there are reportedly growing concerns among educators about the potential impact of the technology on the education sector.

So, are AI tools like ChatGPT valuable time-saving aides for students and teachers, or rather new and hard-to-detect means of plagiarism that are set to degrade independent thought and facilitate an overdependence on technology?

In March, I chaired a The Data Lab (TDL) event that brought together educators for an online discussion on the impacts of generative AI tools like ChatGPT in their field. I was joined by teachers, lecturers, and education experts, as well as data scientists and data engineers. Contrary to the alarm raised in some media reports, what emerged from the educators was a calm and lucid view of the risks posed by the new technology. Far from panicking, those present clearly outlined several strategies for how best to respond to – and embrace – the increased adoption of ChatGPT and AI across their sector.