AROUND THE JERSEY SHORE e Pros And Cons Of Students Using AI To Write Papers

By Andrey Nalbantov

OCEAN COUNTY –

As a powerful language model, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize schoolwork by providing students with instant access to information, personalized assistance, and innovative learning tools.

While ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for students, there is a risk of over-reliance on technology and a lack of critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

The previous two paragraphs reflected both sides of the ChatGPT coin, but they also had another role in this article. Those two paragraphs were written by ChatGPT itself, when asked how it might affect education in both positive and negative manners.

Released at the end of November, the chatbot created and founded by Sam Altman took the world by storm. By January the web app had reached a total of 100 million users, and according to a UBS study, it currently is the fastest-growing consumer app in history.

Even though ChatGPT seemingly possesses all sorts of useful features, it also raises questions that are directly intertwined with the school system here in the United States.

For example: What can ChatGPT offer to our educational system, and are there any potential positives and negatives that can be encountered?

“There are defi nitely some potential benefits and some risks with AI,” said Mary Cammarata, the Supervisor for ELA, Social Studies, and Fine & Performing Arts 5-12 from the Barnegat Township School District. “[The] potential benefits include opportunities to save time for both staff and students by creating outlines, and developing distractor answer choices for multiple-choice questions… while risks include students relying on technology to fully write responses and no longer using their critical thinking skills.”

Jim Barbiere, the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Human Responses at the Barnegat Township School District, believes that this enormously powerful tool can have staggering potential effects. Though, he adds that just like any other

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