Balamithra. P
The technology which has been rapidly growing over the past few years is the Artificial Intelligence technology (AI). While there are four types of AI, the one which has had the most advancement has been the Generative AI. Generative AI can create several types of content, including text, imagery, and audio. Ever since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, several tech companies have been engaged in a race to create chatbots, some examples being Google Gemini, Copilot, and Julius. Over the last few years, continuous advancements have been occurring in chatbots which has resulted in more and more people being attracted to it due to their wide variety of features and services. ChatGPT and other AI chatbots have since been used in various sectors including education and healthcare. More specifically, this has created a significant effect on education. But this has also proved to be a double-edged sword as it has been criticized for undermining creative thinking among students. For instance, the output provided by the Generative AI chatbots cannot be detected by plagiarism software. Since chatbots like Google Gemini can perform arithmetic reasoning and coding with high efficiency, students have been copying from the feature, resulting in their own critical thinking being hampered completely. These chatbots can also provide users with misinformation since they have been shown to inaccurately depict and explain historic information and events. They also don’t encourage the students to engage their minds to solve problems. This is a huge concern which could have ripple effects on education. The chatbots stimulate passive learning while hindering active learning.
This paper demystifies recent trends in Generative AI technology in the field of education and it examines the pros and cons of the technology in the lives of youth. The paper is based on the premise that the complete dependence on technology may ruin the critical thinking among students while reasonable use of the same may aid education. My suggestion is that chatbots shall be used as a tool to amplify the learning among students instead of over-reliance on technology. In this regard, I have adopted descriptive research methodology.
Key words
Chatbots, Education, Generative AI, Critical thinking, Youth.
Introduction
Over the last decade, humans have embraced technology, in a greater way, than ever before. Most specifically, artificial intelligence (AI) technology, that can be traced back to the 1950s, has grown rapidly in recent years. While various factors attributed to this spurt, pandemic has accelerated and catalysed it above the curve. A research paper published in Nature Machine Intelligence by group of scientists reveals that the extensive amount of information generated in social media during the COVID-19 period were used to extensively train new AI design models, as well as the availability of high-performance computing resources such as GPUs and TPUs have also accelerated the development of AI in the last few years.
The world has realized the importance of AI technology in modern-day applications in all sectors including healthcare and education. Government organizations and companies have started to embrace AI technology in all facets of its operation. Undoubtedly, the greatest stimulator to the upcoming golden age of artificial intelligence is the creation of the GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) in 2020 by OpenAI. In November 2022, chatbot named ChatGPT or GPT-3 model came to existence. It is a text-based tool driven by Large Language Models (LLMs) capable of providing responses based on the inputs. In a few months, it gained hundreds of millions of users around the globe and activated the worldwide interest with its development, future and ethical concern. Though the chatbot, cannot achieve sentience, its human-like responses give the appearance of it having its own personality and intentions.
Alerted by ChatGPT’s commercial success, other top tech companies became engaged in a race to create their own advanced robots. Then, in the span of one-year, multiple Generative AI based chatbots came into existence with wide range of applications. Google created Gemini and PaLM, Microsoft created Copilot besides other tools. The advent of this nascent technology has enabled youth to procure study material and information very easily. It has also enhanced the performance of the students in academic projects. The tool has generated slew of benefits, but it is not without its set of challenges. the generative AI chatbots have raised bone of contention on academic ethical and privacy concerns like misinformation, plagiarized content, automated decision making and access to large personal data etc.. Thus, the technology suffers from severe backlash in academics on the premise that it hinders creative and critical thinking in students. The impact of generative AI on youth and contemporary education will be examined, along with its prospects and concerns.
Generative AI and Impact on Youth
With the launch of Chat GPT in 2022, youth have completely tossed their reliance on the Artificial Intelligence. The features such as Natural Language Processing, conversational responses, creative text formats, multilingual capabilities have stimulated over-reliance among youth. The chatbots’ ability to give human-like responses have also greatly added to their attractiveness to the youth. Besides text-based features, text to image models like DALL-3’s incredible features have hugely driven the curiosity of young minds. According to research by Cecilia jointly with Katherine on AI generation gap in Higher Education, Gen Z students are more interested in adopting generative AI than Gen X. Statistics released by Forbes in 2023 revealed that 70% of Gen Z hinge on Generative AI technologies in U.S., U.K., Australia and India. Recently, Chat GPT has created large buzz and reportedly garnered 100 million users in 2 months. However, an array of chatbot tools have surfaced during 2022 and 2023. Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, PaLM, LlaMA, and Claude 2 are a few of the most notable versions.
Generative AI had woven itself firmly into the fabric of youth’s lives and most specifically it permeates formal academic settings. The technology has direct impact on the learning outcome of the students who are exposed to it. While students believe that the Generative AI help them to read their future careers, help in projects by brainstorming ideas, develop project plans and develop feedbacks on their own work. The tool has drawn severe backlash among teachers for undermining creative thinking among students.
However, companies are euphoric about these developments and are certain that the tool may facilitate learning in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and increase the accessibility of learning for disabled people by using text-to-speech and speech-to-text features. More importantly, they can generate language exercises and quizzes using language models. Finally, they can provide prompts for writing stories, prompts and essays. All these applications and uses of AI are expected to rapidly increase in the succeeding decades. Contrariwise, educators flagged several concerns like AI cannot teach students the same like the teaching methods of a human teacher. It cannot express its emotions for its teaching and cannot interact socially with the students which are much needed for social development. Another main reason for the concern is that AI may not be able to fully adapt to each student’s learning styles and learning capabilities.
Conclusion
In the ultimate analysis, any modern technology is fraught with hidden dangers. Technology can be used for benign and malign purposes. Generative AI has significant development in technology which caters to a much wider audience and provides a fillip to improve access to knowledge. Research indicates that undergraduate and postgraduate students perceive Generative AI a valuable and supportive resource in teaching and learning. However, unfettered reliance on the tool may hinder growth, skill and intellectual development and raise severe concerns like accuracy, transparency, privacy and ethical issues. Critical thinking and decision making is the hallmark of modern education. By embracing technology, youth unintentionally give companies unfettered access to personal information. Education sector is in catch 22 situation, the technology has penetrated the lives of youth impacting critical learning experience while educators are concerned about the student’s dependency on the tool and its associated perils. One obvious way out is that the tool needs to be leveraged to enhance rather than to replace capabilities. In order to mitigate the risks of over-reliance on generative AI technology among youth, educators have to foster a learning environment that emphasizes critical thinking, open ended problem solving and well-informed decision making. The youth can be empowered through responsible use of such technologies instead of banning such tools.
1st Year BS in Data Science and Applications, IIT Madras, Chennai.
Email: 23f2000241@ds.study.iitm.ac.in
References:
WIPO, Technology trends 2019: Artificial Intelligence (2019), https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_1055.pdf
Zhenge Jia et al., The importance of resource awareness in Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare Nature News (2023), https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-023-00670-0
Kabita Das et al., Informatics on a social view and need of ethical interventions for wellbeing via interference of Artificial Intelligence, 11 Telematics and Informatics Reports 100065 (2023)
