New York City Rescinds Ban on ChatGPT Use in Public Schools

The chancellor of New York City's school system says the city has revoked its ban on the use of ChatGPT in public schools. From a report: Chancellor David Banks wrote in an op-ed, published by Chalkbeat Thursday, that while the school system proceeded with "initial caution" concerning artificial intelligence (AI) programs earlier this year, they will now work to integrate the programs into the curriculum. He wrote that they consulted with technology and education experts to come to the decision and are ready to teach students about the advantages and disadvantages of AI.

"Our nation is potentially on the brink of a significant societal shift driven by generative artificial intelligence," he wrote. "We must make sure that this technology's benefits are equitably distributed to prevent further widening of socioeconomic gaps in our country." Schools will now use resources developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to "encourage all schools to engage students in activities exploring how artificial intelligence has already impacted their lives and the broader issues it presents to our society," Banks added.

Looks like someone figured it out

[narcc]

ChatGPT isn't going to be a big problem for schools. That took less time than I expected.

overrated

[buck-yar]

I used gpt-4 yesterday via perplexity, disappointed. It was citing poor quality sources. As part of my question I tried several times to force it to use pubmed or scholarly journals, which it did, but still cited menshealth.
I could see where it would work very well if it was trained on the right data. Someone should make a LLM that only is trained on medical / scientific journals

Re:

[sean-it-all]

So every commercial ML in the last 20 years?

Facts

[Dan East]

Sure, it's much more convenient to have AI quickly make up "facts" than having students fabricate incorrect information themselves.

Finally, NYC students will get passing grades

[chas.williams]

I suspect that ChatGPT can easily pass standardized tests.

Re:

[Darinbob]

Only because it's been trained on the answers. Send it in cold, with no access to the internet, with new questions, and see how it does.

Standards

[Iamthecheese]

LLMs make it very easy to churn out useless fluff peppered with incorrect information. So I guess teachers are going to have to do more than skim papers. That's the only real problem here: the necessity of taking the time to read each answer and determine whether it's garbage rather than skimming for keywords and the proper use of English. The length of assignments will have to change -- they will need to be shorter so they can be actually read in the time a teacher has for grading. The focus of assignments will have to change -- they will need to focus on analysis rather than knowledge. Modern students must learn, not just bare facts, (their knowledge of which shouldn't be determined by their essays anymore) but integration and use of information.

Of course by 2035 computers will be doing that stuff better than humans as well, but that's a problem for future society. For now it will suffice to change the types of assignments handed out.

Greater Focus on In-Class Work

[Bobknobber]

Teachers can and honestly should, shift towards a bigger emphasis on in-class assignments/projects then. STEM classes should honestly be best prepared to deal with cheaters/slouches due to their emphasis on exams.See a student with high homework grades but low exam ones? Likely used LLMs or copied answers from someone else, and thus did not bother to understand the material.

English and other soft subjects will need to undergo the greatest change I reckon. Less emphasis on homework/take-home essays and more

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Or instead, flip the school around.

Homework is for watching lectures and content and such- the final goal is to have a list of questions to bring to class.

Class is reviewing the content that was assigned as homework - answering questions and in general, class participation. Bonus points for researching on your own and trying to answer those questions.

Class is also the time to do the work - instead of assigning an essay, a list of problems, etc. as homework, it's done in class where difficulties in understan

Real vote of confidence there.

[Eunomion]

Investing in their, um, "future" as drones of Orwellian dystopia. Just get it over with and merge the school system with the McDonald's employee training program.

Re:

[cstacy]

Investing in their, um, "future" as drones of Orwellian dystopia. Just get it over with and merge the school system with the McDonald's employee training program.

Robots will soon be repairing the robots that are already being rolled out to completely automate the fast food places like McDonalds and Wendys. The only job for humans at those places will be sitting in the self-driving car that took them there and eating the junk food that the AI told them to stuff down.

Sorry, no training for McDonalds.
No jobs in that sector any more.
Guess again.

Re:

[Eunomion]

Being totally real, there aren't gonna be many people if AI wins. It'll be a few thousand oligarchs who got there mostly from inheritance, getting sucked off by robots and keeping around only enough humans to torture so they feel important.

Sure! Make students dumber than ever!

[Chas]

No need to LEARN anything!

Just have the Internet GIVE it to you...

idiots

[groobly]

Idiots are quick to fix problems that don't exist, while ignoring problems that are fatal.

School

[connorball1h2]

Now that's completely in vain. They made a big mistake. If I was looking for something about the civil rights movement before, I used https://edubirdie.com/examples... [edubirdie.com] for that. Now it has become even easier for the students. They don't even have to do anything. Just a nightmare!