Exploring the impact of ChatGPT: conversational AI in education

King (2023, p. 3) encourages universities to design assignments that minimise the potential of cheating through platforms such as ChatGPT by incorporating a variety of assessment methods that go beyond traditional essay writing. For example, they could ‘incorporate oral presentations, group projects, and hands-on activities that require students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in a more interactive and engaging way’. Through an algorithm that analyzes troves of student information from multiple sources, the chatbot was designed to offer tailored responses to questions like “what grade does my child have in math? ” The tool relies on vast amounts of students’ data, including their academic performance and special education accommodations, to function.

So it’s not always clear whether a tech official would lead the effort, or perhaps, in a college setting, someone leading enrollment. Mark McNasby is an entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of Ivy.ai, a leading provider of conversational AI solutions for higher education institutions. With over 20 years of experience in the technology industry, McNasby is a respected figure in the field of AI and has played a pivotal role in shaping the conversation around the role of chatbots in education.

Indeed, Baidoo-Anu and Ansah (2023) emphasize certain inherent drawbacks of the chatbot, such as misinformation, augmenting preexisting prejudices through data training, and privacy concerns. Similarly, Akgun and Greenhow (2022) caution against using AI-based algorithms to predict individual actions from chatbot-human interaction information gathered, raising questions regarding fairness and self-freedom. Likewise, Murtarellia et al. (2021) draw attention to the increased information asymmetry from AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, indicating that human conversations with these bots can enable the collection of personal data to build a user profile. AI chatbots can identify patterns that create an informational advantage for the algorithm’s owner. For example, some HEIs may leverage chatbots to sway students’ attitudes toward academic advice to artificially boost enrollment in specific courses to the detriment of others. We used several databases to comprehensively cover the body of literature related to the impact of AI chatbots on higher education institutions.

On the one hand, many educators fear the program threatens academic integrity, encouraging new methods of cheating and plagiarism. Because of the program’s simplicity, accessibility, and convenience, students have been using it to generate answers to homework and even entire essays, claiming the chatbot’s writing as their own. Andrew Magliozzi, chief executive of the educational chatbot company AdmitHub, said chatbots can also help universities collect data on students’ needs. When students respond to chatbot messages, universities can gain insight into what support students are looking for from their institutions, he said, which in turn helps institutions tune their chatbots to more effectively to deliver support to students.

It examines personalized interaction, quick knowledge access, and immediate responses to student engagement and learning outcomes. While AI’s advantages are recognized, maintaining balance with human educators is essential. The goal is an enriched learning experience, maximizing student engagement and meaningful outcomes through effective AI-human collaboration. ChatGPT’s adaptive capabilities enable personalized learning experiences tailored to individual student needs, fostering inclusive education, and enhancing motivation and academic performance (Pericles ‘asher’ Rospigliosi, 2023).

After a year of ChatGPT, is academia getting to grips with generative AI?

For instance, AI might face challenges in dealing with the unprecedented obstacles humans may encounter during space exploration. Learning experiences must teach them to analyze cases with limited historical data to train available AIs. This example is one of the many approaches for adopting AI in the current academic world, which must shift rapidly to survive. Educational-tech companies including Duolingo and Quizlet, which makes digital flash cards and practice assessments used by half of all high school students in the US, have already integrated OpenAI’s chatbot into their apps. And OpenAI has worked with educators to put together a fact sheet about ChatGPT’s potential impact in schools. The company says it also consulted educators when it developed a free tool to spot text written by a chatbot (though its accuracy is limited).

They need support to figure it out—perhaps even government support in the form of money, training, and regulation. Teachers are asking students to use ChatGPT to generate text on a topic and then getting them to point out the flaws. In one example that a colleague of Stansbury’s shared at her workshop, students used the bot to generate an essay about the history of the printing press.

Additional examples of transformers being used for research purposes include predictions of electrical load (L’Heureux et al., 2022), sales (Vallés-Pérez et al., 2022), influenza prevalence (Wu et al., 2020), etcetera. Specifically, Lopez-Lira and Tang (2023) discovered that ChatGPT could accurately forecast stock market returns and surpasses traditional sentiment analysis approaches. They recommend integrating advanced language models into investment decision-making to enhance the accuracy of predictions and optimize quantitative trading strategies.

In conclusion, the introduction sets the stage for a comprehensive exploration of ChatGPT’s multifaceted impacts, spanning human-computer interactions, educational advancements, and societal challenges. By leveraging ChatGPT’s capabilities responsibly, we can unlock a new era of personalized and transformative human-AI interactions, ushering in innovative educational practices and advancing society. Reid studies educational technology products and reviews their efficacy in classroom instruction. He says AI products could yield positive learning outcomes by providing personalized attention and learning to students, but does not believe tools such as Khanmigo could replace human instruction completely. He sees educators using new platforms to supplement classroom work but wouldn’t be surprised if a teacher’s role shifts as technology evolves. The integration of generative AI chatbots in higher education is transforming student support by optimizing engagement, anticipating needs, and offering personalized guidance.

It involves refining model architectures, improving training methodologies, incorporating external knowledge sources, developing robust evaluation metrics, and implementing guidelines and regulations for responsible AI development and deployment. To refine our research focus, we initially defined our objectives and formulated research questions accordingly. The search strategy involved identifying appropriate search terms that would facilitate the identification of relevant articles related to our investigation. The research methodology employed in this study is illustrated in Figure 2, which presents the resources we searched from and the selection of the paper procedure. Additionally, Figure 3 explains how many papers appear for each keyword in the search phase and the keyword AI the most found.

How do chatbots benefit higher education institutions?

The use of ChatGPT in education has the potential to influence student engagement and learning outcomes greatly. By analyzing the provided paragraph and considering the available literature, it becomes evident that ChatGPT’s advanced capabilities contribute to enhanced educational experiences. One significant factor is the program’s ability to provide personalized student interaction. Through tailored responses and prompt feedback, ChatGPT creates an interactive learning environment that captures students’ attention and encourages active participation (Looi, 2023). Other technologies include digital examination, predictive analytics, machine learning for cheating detection, blockchain for secure student data, biometric verification for authentication, and digital rights management for IP protection (GPT-2 Output Detector Demo, 2022).

Oxford Insights’ 2022 Government AI Readiness Index (Insights, 2022) ranks 160 countries on AI readiness for public services, with 30% having released a national AI strategy and 9% developing one. Accordingly, GESTION (2023) reveals that, as established by a survey of 1,000 US business magnates by ResumeBuilder.com, virtually half of the businesses have already adopted ChatGPT, and a further 30% are looking to do so. It is supposed that 48% of ChatGPT customers have supplanted personnel and saved over $75,000. It is also used to write job descriptions (77%), craft job interview applications (66%), and reply to job seekers (65%). The model can also generate screenplays and theatre scripts, while AI image generators such as DALL-E can produce high-quality art. The power of AI systems is placing a huge question mark over our education and assessment practices.

But the four academics who peer-reviewed it assumed it was written by these three scholars. Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is the Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health. Users must use chatbots in a manner that respects the rights and dignity of others. They should not be used for malicious purposes, harassment, hate speech, or any activity that violates applicable laws or regulations.

The benefits of AI tools, especially in complementing traditional educational methods, are indeed appealing, with the potential for increased accessibility and individualised learning experiences. More specifically, universities have embraced chatbots to provide prospective students with fast and accurate answers to their questions, including queries about financial aid, available modules or assessment information for their programme (Meyer von Wolff et al., 2020). Chatbots ChatGPT App can also save staff time by reducing the number of times they have to answer the same questions. University applicants value 24/7 availability as an important characteristic of chatbots (see Meyer von Wolff et al., 2020). Students have also become familiar with communicating with chatbots, using them on commercial apps such as retail and banking. We aim to investigate the perceived benefits and challenges of using ChatGPT as a conversational AI tool in educational settings.

• Thus, alternative terms such as faithfulness and factuality have been proposed to more accurately assess the accuracy and adherence to external knowledge sources of AI-generated content (Dong et al., 2020).
• Due to the nature of ML, it cannot learn from encrypted data, which presents additional challenges for policymakers that previous technologies did not.
• Perhaps most worrying is that current UK data privacy regulations allow individuals to request that their data be deleted from an organisation after a certain period.

District leaders also developed plans in science and English language arts that focus on new approaches to learning to boost student achievement. In April, it was still in early implementation at 100 of the district’s lowest performing “priority” schools, serving about 55,000 students. The district “unplugged” the chatbot on June 14, the Los Angeles Times reported last week, but a district spokesperson said L.A. “will continue making Ed available as a tool to its students and families and is closely monitoring the potential acquisition of AllHere.” The company did not immediately responded to queries about the chatbot or its future. So LAUSD’s AI chatbot serves as a new layer that sits on top of the other systems the district already pays for, allowing students and parents to ask questions and get answers based on data pulled from many existing tools. As at many schools these days, students spend much of their learning time on a laptop or an iPad, and they use a variety of tech tools as they move through the school day.

Chatbots can persuade people to stop believing in conspiracy theories

This work has received additional funding from Laval University’s Faculty of Education. Not only do chatbots provide information quickly but they engage users through personalized experiences. This ultimately helps institutions improve their customer service and meet the needs of their students and staff. An overreliance on chatbots can lead to a lack of engagement and authentic learning experiences for students (Fryer et al., 2020), therefore, educators using AI are encouraged to foster autonomy without compromising student self-efficacy. For students, this can result in the development of misconceptions, which can have a long-term impact on self-efficacy, potentially affecting their understanding of key concepts or leading to different career choices (Emsley, 2023).

Deans, professors and administrators attending the world’s largest business education conference are test-driving an AI-powered tool that’s promising big changes. Centres should consider anonymization of users, strong encryption of all data stored, and in-house storage when possible or by a trusted contracted third party following similar data privacy rules. Chatbots should be designed to “do no harm,” as per the UNESCO’s recent recommendations on the ethics of artificial intelligence. Either way, the chatbot will also learn from this interaction as well as future interactions.

Some teachers are experimenting with chatbots to create course plans, assignments, and exam questions more quickly than they have traditionally done on their own. “One educator thought it did a reasonably good job, although it needed some tweaking,” says Willies-Jacobo at Kaiser. Chatbots can produce summaries of just about anything studied in medical school, including biological functions, illnesses, and treatments. But the answers do not cite sources, leaving users responsible for verifying their accuracy or vulnerable to passing along errors. However, Chuck also notes that applicants can “keep prompting it [the program] to add some personality” and reflection.

The data-driven approach enhances institutional efficiency, helping universities better allocate resources and respond to emerging needs. The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot has given us a glimpse into the future of teaching and learning alongside artificial intelligence. Lepre explains the possibility of instructing students to reverse engineer an essay generated by AI by personalizing the essay and adding missing details.

It is, therefore, important to investigate the concerns of using chatbots in education to ensure safe and ethical use. This article briefly introduces the ethical implications chatbot for educational institutions of using platforms such as ChatGPT in education. The author focuses on data privacy, algorithmic bias, autonomy in learning, and the issue of plagiarism.

Educators face a unique ethical challenge when employing AI-generated content as classroom resources, as they hold the responsibility of ensuring the accuracy of the information presented. Emsley (2023) cautions educators and researchers about the falsifications that can be generated on a chatbot. In a study, investigating the authenticity and accuracy of references in case studies generated by ChatGPT, Emsley (2023) found that of 115 references that were generated, 47% were fabricated, 46% were authentic but inaccurate, and only 7% were authentic and accurate. However, Scharaschkin (2023) argues that while AI holds the potential to reduce teacher workload and improve grading reliability, it still requires close human supervision to safeguard against potential inaccuracies that can occur during AI hallucinations. This human involvement, nevertheless, introduces an additional layer of verification, which can in itself become a time-consuming and administrative burden, which may discourage its use.

Similarly, in an educational setting, the deployment of chatbots may include collecting, analysing, and storing student data. The data may be used to make helpful predictions about which students are at risk of falling behind in their work, and this is likely to be administered in a way that is beyond a simple Excel formula. This could allow academic tutors to develop early interventions and target support, which can be incorporated into programme planning (Hill-Yardin et al., 2023). As such, the data for these activities extend beyond academic performance metrics, often delving into sensitive personal information (Biswas, 2023). The functionality depends on the chatbots’ ability to understand and respond to student learning habits, strengths and weaknesses.

While they can generate coherent responses, they may need help with complex queries requiring deeper analysis, reasoning, or inference. Advancing essential thinking capabilities involves exploring techniques such as knowledge incorporation, logical reasoning, and the ability to handle abstract or ambiguous queries (Zielinski et al., 2023) effectively. Newark is one of 53 school districts across the country to pilot the tool, which is accessed through Khan Academy’s website rather than a separate app. First Avenue Students can access Khanmigo to get hints for solving challenging math problems or explain concepts they find confusing across all subjects. The chatbot can also guide students in exploring topics they’re interested in or exploring new ones.

A chatbot, also called a conversational or virtual agent, is a software or computer system designed to communicate with humans using natural language processing. Nadia Naffi receives funding from the National Bank to support the work of her Chair in Educational Leadership. The Chair focuses on educational technology and lifelong learning in the era of digital transformation and artificial intelligence.

How AI can humanize the teaching experience at universities

So not just companies, but a growing number of colleges and universities have also begun using chatbot technology, says Keith Rajecki. He is with Oracle Higher Education, a computer software company that serves these institutions. Students can use chatbots as starting points for research, writing, and studying — essentially as sophisticated search engines to aggregate and summarize information (while making sure to verify it).

This appears to be a reasonable strategy as publicly available datasets are mostly underrepresented for many minority groups and, thus, lack diversity. One of the defining attributes of chatbots such as ChatGPT is their ability to learn from diverse data sources (Qadir, 2022). Generally, enabling chatbots to deliver a wider range of responses and more nuanced interactions is considered an administrative and pedagogical advantage for education professionals. However, this also presents challenges such as algorithmic bias, a significant ethical concern arising when societal biases become encoded in our AI systems. In addition to personalized learning, ChatGPT promotes the development of inquiry and questioning skills among students.

Lastly, AlDhaen (2022) suggests that implementing AI in the academic world will improve educational and non-academic operations governance. Additionally, several articles report using AI chatbots for gathering qualitative information for research purposes. Similarly, Nunamaker et al. (2011) suggest gathering human physiology and behavior information during interactions with chatbot-like technology. Pickard et al. (2017) compare the qualitative data collected from automated virtual interviewers, called embodied conversational agents, versus the information obtained by human interviewers. Xiao et al. (2020) assess the effectiveness of the limitations of chatbots in conducting surveys.

They find no divergent outcomes stemming from exposure to heat and assigned gender. Alternatively, Leavy (2018) argues that machine intelligence reflects gender biases in its data. Although attempts have been made to address algorithmic bias, they still need to pay more attention to the role of gender-based language.

On the other, ChatGPT’s simple design and brainstorming capabilities appeal to educators who see its potential to improve education. These teachers say that, over time, the real impact will not be an increase in cheating, but a revitalization of lesson plans and classroom instruction. He suggests that technology like chatbots can work well if it is able to do what users ask of it. Jacobs says the problem is when cost cutting becomes an important reason for deploying the technology. This means schools and companies are more likely to try using chatbots for things they are not yet able to do.

• In the same way, Miller et al. (2018) cautioned about the potential perils of using social data, including human prejudice to train AI systems, which could lead to prejudicial decision-making processes.
• This study uniquely amalgamates varied perspectives on the impact of AI chatbots in higher education, offering a broad, balanced, and nuanced understanding of this complex issue.
• Over 40 educational platforms are being used by the district, according to a January committee report.
• With no one available to answer their questions, they may feel frustrated and uncertain.
• As users engage with ChatGPT, its ability to learn from individual preferences empowers the creation of tailored responses, revolutionizing the way humans interact with AI systems (Aljanabi and ChatGPT, 2023).

Covid-19 and the unique period of remote learning was the catalyst that severely reduced on-campus interactions across the sector (Williams, 2022). University administrators had to develop and implement effective ways to communicate with others in the education community in ways that not only meet the needs of students but can expand and enhance relationships (Hill-Yardin et al., 2023). Williams (2023) describe this as technology being used in transformative ways.

Now Oracle is offering one program for all areas of support services that colleges or universities provide to their students and employees. This includes a chatbot that can do everything from helping students register for classes to helping professors request time off. Oracle ChatGPT offers several software tools now in use at hundreds of schools in the United States, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. These tools help with almost everything, from academic record keeping to employee services, and most include a chatbot in their programming.

Similar technology, such as GPTZero and CopyLeaks AI Content Detector, already has been launched—with many more detection programs in the making. Shields explains that she sent tenth-grade assignments to ChatGPT, asking the chatbot to restructure the material at a sixth-grade level. Her students were then able to follow along and participate in class with their differentiated material.

Emphasizing how to analyze and use information provided through AI “puts the burden on the teacher to come up with ways of teaching other than rote learning,” Bostwick says. Chuck thinks that admissions officers will learn to recognize the common prose of chatbot essays. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. Admissions officers hope that interviews with applicants will reveal those who appear to have produced their essays largely through chatbots, much the way that interviews often indicate that an applicant’s work was written by someone else. The giveaway comes in how the applicant speaks, thinks out loud, and responds to unexpected questions.