Students critique chatbots
Lesson in computer science class generated by AI looks into use, pitfalls of new tech
NEW YORK — Marisa Shuman’s computer science class at the Young Women’s Leadership School of the Bronx in New York City began as usual on a recent January morning.
Just after 11:30, energetic 11th and 12th graders bounded into the classroom, settled down at communal study tables and pulled out their laptops. Then they turned to the front of the room, eyeing a whiteboard where Shuman had posted a question on wearable technology, the topic of that day’s class.
For the first time in her decadelong teaching career, Shuman had not written any of the lesson plan. She had generated the class material using ChatGPT, a new chatbot that relies on artificial intelligence to deliver written responses to questions in clear prose. Shuman was using the algorithm-generated lesson to examine the chatbot’s potential usefulness and pitfalls with her students.
“I don’t care if you learn anything about wearable technology today,” Shuman said to her students. “We are evaluating ChatGPT. Your goal is to identify whether the lesson is effective or ineffective.”
Across the United States, universities and school districts are scrambling to get a handle on new chatbots that can generate humanlike texts and images. But while many are rushing to ban ChatGPT to try to prevent its use as a cheating aid, teachers such as Shuman are leveraging the innovations to spur more critical classroom thinking. They are encouraging their students to question the hype around rapidly evolving AI tools and consider the technologies’ potential side effects.
The aim, these educators say, is to train the next generation of technology creators and consumers in “critical computing.” That is an analytical approach in which understanding how to critique computer algorithms is as important as — or more important than — knowing how to program computers.
As part of Shuman’s lesson, the 11th and 12th graders read news articles about how ChatGPT could be both useful and errorprone. As the class period began, Shuman asked the students to spend 20 minutes following the scripted lesson, as if it were a real class on wearable technology. Then they would analyze ChatGPT’s effectiveness as a simulated teacher.
Huddled in small groups, students read aloud information the bot had generated on the conveniences, health benefits, brand names and market value of smartwatches and fitness trackers. There were groans as students read out ChatGPT’s anodyne sentences — “Examples of smart glasses include Google Glass Enterprise 2” — that they said sounded like marketing copy or rave product reviews.
“It reminded me of fourth grade,” said Jayda Arias, 18. “It was very bland.”
The class found the lesson stultifying compared with those by Shuman.
Shuman was offering a lesson that went beyond learning to identify AI bias. She was using ChatGPT to give her pupils a message that AI was not inevitable and that the young women had the insights to challenge it.
“Should your teachers be using ChatGPT?” Shuman asked toward the end of the lesson.
The students’ answer was a resounding “No!” At least for now.