Photo courtesy of Andrea De Santis/Unsplash
As the recently created artificial intelligence ChatGPT is becoming a hot topic in schools around America, Hofstra University faculty and students are presenting many different perspectives on its potential use in classes.
While Hofstra University does not plan to control the extent to which faculty and departments use ChatGPT, the provost’s office has instructed all faculty to include a statement about using artificial intelligence tools in their syllabus. Students are expected, according to the statement, to maintain academic integrity and honesty.
“Unless indicated otherwise in the instructions for a specific assignment, the use of ChatGPT or similar artificial intelligence tools for work submitted in this course constitutes the receiving of ‘unauthorized assistance for academic work’ and is a violation of the Hofstra University Honor Code,” the statement reads.
Daniel Seabold, the acting dean of the Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, put together a faculty event on Wednesday, Feb. 22, to explain what ChatGPT is, so professors can better understand what they are dealing with. He believes each instructor will have a different policy on the use of ChatGPT.
“In some classes, they may actually be studying ChatGPT to understand how it works; in other areas, it might be a tool to do some kind of research,” Seabold said. “This is a kind of a brave new world.”
Eric Gantwerker, associate professor of otolaryngology at the Zucker School of Medicine, feels optimistic about ChatGPT. Many tasks within the medical field are clinic-based, where there is no use for ChatGPT. However, he encourages using and teaching AI in the medical field to help with prior authorization tasks, like billing repeals and insurance.
“We have to recognize that there are advantages to this, and being resistant to technology is going to end up causing us more worry and money than it would be to figure out how to properly use it,” Gantwerker said.
On the other side of the academic spectrum, Ethna Lay, chair of the writing studies and rhetoric department, believes ChatGPT should not be used as a tool to help students complete work but rather to help improve their writing skills.
“Studying the validity of an AI-generated text can be a really useful assignment and potentially offers students another way to learn how to write,” Lay said.
Students also have differing opinions on the use of ChatGPT in the classroom. In a poll on the social app Fizz asking whether students at Hofstra should be allowed to use ChatGPT, Hofstra University students’ answers were split almost exactly in half. 292, or 51%, answered “yes” and 280, or 49%, answered “no.”
Sydney Livingston, a freshman, is open to using ChatGPT to check resumes and cover letters.
“I don’t think we should be so prone to be against such an amazing piece of programming and technology that could add so many benefits to education just because it’s scary and new,” Livingston said.
Jake Epstein, a sophomore, understands where both sides of the conversation are coming from.
“I think AI should be allowed to speed up the research process but not the writing of papers because that isn’t the student’s original thought,” Epstein said.
ChatGPT is a growing software that will change the way people use the internet and perform tasks in the classroom and in the professional field. Gantwerker believes this development can be compared to when the Internet first came out.
“Life had to transform to a new normal involving this technology into our lives,” Gantwerker said.
