Thread by @sharplm

This "student essay" was written by an AI Transformer program. I gave it a prompt "The construct of learning styles is problematic because " and it generated the rest, including the headings and references. AI Transformer technology will disrupt education. Here's how. 🧵1/

The most obvious disruption is students submitting assignments generated by AI. That's already happening. Anyone can sign up for an account with the GPT-3 Transformer then go to its "Playground", type the opening words of an assignment, press Submit and let it do the rest. /2

Note its reference to "Dunn and Dunn (1997)". There is a journal of Research in Education, but no issue 7(2) in 1997. Dunn & Dunn did publish on learning styles, but not in that journal. GPT-3 has invented a plausible-looking but fake reference. /3

Plagiarism software will not detect essays written by Transformers, because the text is generated, not copied. A Google search shows each sentence as novel. Any student can now generate an entire original essay or assignment in seconds. /4

Some Transformers such as GPT-3 can filter bad language. But they are essentially amoral. They don't know what they have written - they can't reflect on their output. Can a powerful but amoral text generator be used for good in education? Here are some suggestions. /5

Just as a student can generate an essay in seconds, so a teacher can assess it. Add "Here is a short assessment of this student essay:" and GPT-3 writes a review. It's an OK job. It transforms surface text into a review, but doesn't get to the meaning nor the fake reference. /6

Students will employ AI to write assignments. Teachers will use AI to assess them. Nobody learns, nobody gains. If ever there were a time to rethink assessment, it's now. Instead of educators trying to outwit AI Transformers, let's harness them for learning. /7

First, Transformers can quickly show students different ways to express ideas and structure assignments. A teacher can run a classroom exercise to generate a few assignments on a topic, then get students to critique them and write their own better versions. /8

Second, AI Transformers can be creativity tools. Each student writes a short story with an AI. Student writes the first paragraph, AI continues with the second, and so on. A good way to explore possibilities and overcome writer's block. /9

Third, teachers can explore the ethics and limits of AI. How does it feel to interact with an expert wordsmith that has no morals and no experience of the world? Does a "deep neural network" have a mind, or is it just a big data processor? /10

Finally, as educators, if we are setting students assignments that can be answered by AI Transformers, are we really helping students learn? There are many better ways to assess for learning: constructive feedback, peer assessment, teachback. nfer.ac.uk/media/3094/ass… /11

For more on AI Transformers and story generation machines, see routledge.com/Story-Machines…