ChatGPT Inspires Moral Debate

Rise in usage raises discussion of need in classrooms

Ethan Klaiman | Staff Writer

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by San Francisco-based startup, OpenAI. OpenAI was cofounded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman and is backed by big investors, most notably Microsoft. What and a half years. Although ChatGPT is growing so quickly, it still has its limitations. Responses from ChatGPT can contain factual inaccuracies such as fictitious historical names, books that don’t exist, or incorrectly solved math problems. While most programs have their errors, the successful functions are what make them so special. The question is, can it have the prompt.” Guider also believes that if there are regulations in place, and it isn’t being used to write an entire essay, then using it is fair game. William Anderson ‘23 agreed with Guider that if it is used correctly to aid learning then it can be helpful, but if used wrongly it can become “morally dubious.”

Alternatively, English teacher Cory Tao said, “If you are using traditional courses. The surprisingly hot button idea has created a deep stratification of community members. While English is the only department to have a requirement for an English course each semester of high school, a Humanities Lab would impact all students.

Remy Abraham ‘23 shared, “I think the [Humanities Lab] could be a very good idea. Most of the English classes have similar assignments, so having help with essays throughout the school day would be very helpful. Switching off teachers would be good as well so that you could get multiple perspectives. I don’t think there are many major downsides to having the [Humanities Lab]; it’s just more help for students. To the idea as a whole, I say ‘Go forth!’”

Darian Mehra ‘23 added, “I think it’s a great idea because lots of students have trouble finding times to meet with their teachers; staying after school and coming in before school is tough because of sports and clubs. Also, I feel like we would grow as writers by doing it with more help. For those reasons, a writing center would be beneficial for a lot of people.”

Audrey Friedell ‘24 explained, “It’s an interesting

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‘25, Sophomore Forum representative, originally presented the idea for a Humanities Lab after seeing her own classmates struggling. “A lot of students mentioned having English essays being really hard for them—not really knowing grammar that well… especially coming out of COVID-19.”

The downside to a Humanities Lab might be that, as Abraham put it, “every English teacher is looking for something different in their essays, so it might be hard to figure out what your teacher wants. It also depends what book you’re writing your essay on.” Chen adds, “There was a concern there that if this teacher’s helping me now with my paper what if it doesn’t meet the standards of the teacher who is going to grade my paper?” Forum worked to combat the conflict, discussing in a recent meeting, “it would be really beneficial to have the rubric laid out and to tell the teacher there ‘Hey this is who my teacher is, this is the point of the essay.’”

Furthermore, Mehra said, “The only thing that might go wrong would be the creativity of students’ writing. It could very well turn into a teacher writing the essay [as opposed to the student writing it].” makes ChatGPT so impressive is its ability to produce human-like responses to an ability that no other generative AI application has achieved.

According to a Feb. 8 article by CNBC, ChatGPT grew so fast that in only two months after its release, it amassed 100 million active users, where it took Tik Tok nine months and Instagram two educational benefits? Or is it too immoral to use?

According to Sawyer Guider ‘25, “It can be applied educationally with limits set in place on how it can be used… As a student with ADHD, I have a hard time getting into the flow of things, especially when writing an essay, so using ChatGPT could help me think about other ways to look at plagiarism filters, it will be caught in a second… we could quickly tell it was not written by a human person.”

She added, “If you are a student of integrity, that you are someone who always strives for your own idea written in your own unique way… it is going to be written at your level… so never ever ever use Google.”

Cawood furthers, “We didn’t teach ‘Night’ because we couldn’t give it the proper context. Doing ‘Night’ via online Zoom school didn’t seem to be the best choice because we couldn’t really help kids understand … the emotional weight.”

Holocaust studies were phased back into the Middle School curriculum in 20212022 via the D.C. trip. As students recover from the emotional strains of COVID, “Night” will return to the curriculum.

As for the Upper School, Olson notes, “[Holocaust and Genocide Studies is] a really great example of how we can continue to dive deeper into instances of genocide and of the Holocaust.” Besikof adds, “I don’t think having it as an elective is enough in my opinion, I wish there was a way it could be embedded more into the Upper School.”