ChatGPT just killed homework, essays, and take-home exams.
Or did it?
How written work might survive in the age of AI 👇
ChatGPT was a shock to the educational system.
Overnight, students could input a prompt or problem and get a solid result across subjects - English, history, CS, even science.
And unsurprisingly, they're using it to do their assignments and exams.
Apps to answer math questions have been around for a while.
But ChatGPT is different - it can do things that previously required human judgment and analysis, like writing full essays or solving complex problem sets.
The result? An "existential crisis" for educators.
What's next? I see three paths forward:
1⃣ Schools adjust assignments to prevent the use of AI.
Take-home work largely disappears. Class time is used for proctored essays, problem sets, and exams.
Homework time is spent learning asynch via video - a "flipped classroom" model.
2⃣ Schools embrace AI.
Students will use AI in real life. Why make them do things the "old fashioned way" at school?
Instead, lessons will incorporate AI - teaching students how to write prompts, analyze outputs, and edit as needed (CC: @emollick).
3⃣ Schools learn to audit AI.
In this case, AI assistance is viewed like plagiarism. Educators learn how to detect it, and have policies in place to downgrade or disqualify assignments.
A "GPT watermark" may already be in the works at OpenAI 👀
Alternatively, a Turnitin.com style tool could be used to predict the likelihood that an assignment was AI-generated.
It could flag:
- Discrepancies between in-class and take-home work
- Heavy use of words/phrases popular with AI tools
- "Unnatural" sentence structure
Today, we're in a state of "AI panic" as parents and educators scramble to address ChatGPT.
FWIW - I think it's not entirely a bad thing. Technological progress is, by nature, disruptive.
Even calculators sparked heavy debate in the 1980s!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…
To me, the rise of AI tools presents a question to us all:
Do we maintain the status quo, or use AI as an opportunity to rethink the way we deliver education?
If you're building at the intersection of AI and learning, our team @a16z would love to hear from you 👀
@a16z Quick addition: @omooretweets and I asked our Accelerated 🚀 audience (~30K millennials + Gen Zers) about the most likely outcome here.
The results, and a few more thoughts on the subject ⬇️
readaccelerated.com/p/is-this-the-…
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