ChatGPT in Schools
Plus, Medieval Moon Launch
I’ve been on a bit of a ChatGPT bender lately because the implications of this 46-day-old technology are mind-boggling and because its effects will roll over academe, business, and journalism like a tsunami in the coming weeks and months. After today, I’ll put ChatGPT aside for a while and write on other topics. But I invite readers to share their experiences with me for the sake of future columns. Email me at rfg.counterpoint@gmail.com.
High Marx for Even-Handedness
For those who have been living beyond the reach of electronic communication since late November, ChatGPT is a free, artificial-intelligence-driven bot that will instantly write complex essays, poems, computer code, and more at the request of users. The quality of said output is hotly debated. The education profession is convulsing at the thought of this new technology in their students’ hands. Some schools are attempting to ban this new technology (as schools once attempted with calculators). In my view, the horse is already out of the barn, and trying to ban the technology will be futile and counterproductive.
A good friend of mine is taking what is likely to be a more successful approach—cautious, attentive experimentation. While he shares my concerns about ChatGPT, he has told his college students that (for now, at least) they are free to use the technology as long as they acknowledge in writing when they do so. Failure to mention using this tool would be an honor offense. He’s anxious to see whether it helps or hurts and will extemporize as experience dictates.
Groucho Marx reputedly said, “These are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.” Perhaps to its credit, ChatGPT seems to share that philosophy. In two opposing queries, I asked ChatGPT, in effect, to debate itself on the issue of students using ChatGPT in writing their assignments. In its responses, it exhibited the same moral relativism offered by Groucho. The table below shows my two queries, plus bullets extracted from the resulting responses.
With such moral and intellectual plasticity, ChatGPT might want to consider running for political office.
Ex Anachronismo, Levitas
In a recent post, For a Leg Up In Job Markets: Don’t be Clark Griswold, I posed a riddle (generated by ChatGPT, of course). I translated a 20th century quotation into Old English, a language spoken 1,000 or more years ago. I asked readers to identify the original quote which, I noted, is entirely inappropriate for an ancient language. I also added that the third word begins with a letter not found in Modern English (þ, pronounced as “th” “that” or “those.”), and the final word ends with another obsolete letter (ð, equivalent to “th” “path” or “birth”). Here’s the Old English version, followed by the original quote:
A couple of readers figured out the original quote. It is, in fact, a translation (imperfect, perhaps) of President John F. Kennedy’s famous challenge to a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961:
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
With that, Gōd wyrd sīe ēow to NASA and/or SpaceX and/or whomever else returns mankind to the moon before this decade is out.
Robert F. Graboyes is president of RFG Counterpoint, LLC in Alexandria, Virginia. An economist, journalist, and musician, he holds five degrees, including a PhD in economics from Columbia University. An award-winning professor, in 2014, he received the Reason Foundation’s Bastiat Prize for Journalism. His music compositions are at YouTube.com/@RFGraboyes/videos.
Mr. Graboyes:
I just want to point out two things about those non-English letters, "þ" and "ð". First, they have names: "þ" is called a "thorn", and "ð" is called an "eth". And second, simplifying somewhat for clarity[**], you have their pronunciations switched around. (Trust me: I am an expert on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and he was passing fond of both letters, particularly eth.) It is the thorn, not the eth, that is pronounced like an UNvoiced "th" (e.g., the "th" in "thin"); and you pronounce the eth, not the thorn, like a VOICED "th" (e.g., the "th" in "this").
[** - The UNsimplified situation is of course more complicated. Old English lacked both of these letters until the early 8th century, and at first they were essentially interchangeable for either pronunciation above. The thorn nearly died out by the 780s; but it came roaring during the reign of Alfred the Great, to the point where it pushed out the eth, which faded away around the time of Middle English. But as the evolution of English continued, the thorn also died out by the time of Early Modern English. (In other words, when sourcing how these letters are pronounced, citing only Old English is problematic.) One current (modern) language has retained both letters: Icelandic, of course, in which they are pronounced as I have described above, with the following exceptions: thorns never appear at the end of a word; eths never appear at the beginning of a word; and eths are "devoiced" (pronounced like thorns) in two situations: when they appear at the end of a word, and when they are followed by a voiceless consonant, like "t" or "k".]
I am much more convinced by SkyNet's arguments against its use by students. ( I tried to ask its opinion but its been very busy.)
By the time I retired three years ago my senior high school law students were writing all their assignments by hand in class. First, because of rampant 'copy and paste'. Second, to avoid the plagiarism program I had employed, the sale of original essays on line. One way for educators to avoid ChatGPT I guess.
I have read recently that the program had written a medical board exam. First time, not so good. Second time, it passed. And it writes code. And despite the issues it has been having with nonsensical errors, it will be much smarter next year.
Butlerian jihad anyone?