It’s goodbye to homework, gloats chatbot backer Musk
ELON MUSK has declared the end of homework after New York schools attempted to clamp down on pupils using a new artificial intelligence chatbot to cheat.
The tech billionaire, an early investor in the company behind CHATGPT, wrote on Twitter: “It’s a new world. Goodbye homework!”
CHATGPT, released by the Silicon Valley company Openai in November, is a free online service that has alarmed teachers due to its ability to churn out convincing essays which cannot be detected by their existing anti-plagiarism software.
Anyone who registers for an account can type questions into it, including requests for essays on any subject, and have them answered by the chatbot’s algorithms.
New York City’s education department said this week that students and teachers have been blocked from accessing the chatbot on state devices or internet networks. It cited “negative impacts on learning, and concerns regarding the safety and agency of content”.
A spokesman said: “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 move will pose a challenge for schools and governments around the world considering how to respond to the game-changing new technology.
The Daily Telegraph revealed last week that Ofqual, the exam watchdog
for England, was considering whether schools should be given guidance on how to prevent pupils from cheating on coursework with the chatbot.
Head teachers said they were planning emergency talks this week to work out how to respond to the technology.
Teachers who marked three CHATGPT answers to GCSE questions in English language, English literature and history said they would score between a grade 4, or standard pass, and a grade 6.
Education leaders are divided about whether to ban the technology or use it as a teaching tool.