'Welcome to Campus. Here's Your ChatGPT.' (nytimes.com) 36
The New York Times reports:
California State University announced this year that it was making ChatGPT available to more than 460,000 students across its 23 campuses to help prepare them for "California's future A.I.-driven economy." Cal State said the effort would help make the school "the nation's first and largest A.I.-empowered university system..." Some faculty members have already built custom chatbots for their students by uploading course materials like their lecture notes, slides, videos and quizzes into ChatGPT.
And other U.S. campuses including the University of Maryland are also "working to make A.I. tools part of students' everyday experiences," according to the article. It's all part of an OpenAI initiative "to overhaul college education — by embedding its artificial intelligence tools in every facet of campus life."
The Times calls it "a national experiment on millions of students." If the company's strategy succeeds, universities would give students A.I. assistants to help guide and tutor them from orientation day through graduation. Professors would provide customized A.I. study bots for each class. Career services would offer recruiter chatbots for students to practice job interviews. And undergrads could turn on a chatbot's voice mode to be quizzed aloud ahead of a test. OpenAI dubs its sales pitch "A.I.-native universities..." To spread chatbots on campuses, OpenAI is selling premium A.I. services to universities for faculty and student use. It is also running marketing campaigns aimed at getting students who have never used chatbots to try ChatGPT...
OpenAI's campus marketing effort comes as unemployment has increased among recent college graduates — particularly in fields like software engineering, where A.I. is now automating some tasks previously done by humans. In hopes of boosting students' career prospects, some universities are racing to provide A.I. tools and training...
[Leah Belsky, OpenAI's vice president of education] said a new "memory" feature, which retains and can refer to previous interactions with a user, would help ChatGPT tailor its responses to students over time and make the A.I. "more valuable as you grow and learn." Privacy experts warn that this kind of tracking feature raises concerns about long-term tech company surveillance. In the same way that many students today convert their school-issued Gmail accounts into personal accounts when they graduate, Ms. Belsky envisions graduating students bringing their A.I. chatbots into their workplaces and using them for life.
"It would be their gateway to learning — and career life thereafter," Ms. Belsky said.
And other U.S. campuses including the University of Maryland are also "working to make A.I. tools part of students' everyday experiences," according to the article. It's all part of an OpenAI initiative "to overhaul college education — by embedding its artificial intelligence tools in every facet of campus life."
The Times calls it "a national experiment on millions of students." If the company's strategy succeeds, universities would give students A.I. assistants to help guide and tutor them from orientation day through graduation. Professors would provide customized A.I. study bots for each class. Career services would offer recruiter chatbots for students to practice job interviews. And undergrads could turn on a chatbot's voice mode to be quizzed aloud ahead of a test. OpenAI dubs its sales pitch "A.I.-native universities..." To spread chatbots on campuses, OpenAI is selling premium A.I. services to universities for faculty and student use. It is also running marketing campaigns aimed at getting students who have never used chatbots to try ChatGPT...
OpenAI's campus marketing effort comes as unemployment has increased among recent college graduates — particularly in fields like software engineering, where A.I. is now automating some tasks previously done by humans. In hopes of boosting students' career prospects, some universities are racing to provide A.I. tools and training...
[Leah Belsky, OpenAI's vice president of education] said a new "memory" feature, which retains and can refer to previous interactions with a user, would help ChatGPT tailor its responses to students over time and make the A.I. "more valuable as you grow and learn." Privacy experts warn that this kind of tracking feature raises concerns about long-term tech company surveillance. In the same way that many students today convert their school-issued Gmail accounts into personal accounts when they graduate, Ms. Belsky envisions graduating students bringing their A.I. chatbots into their workplaces and using them for life.
"It would be their gateway to learning — and career life thereafter," Ms. Belsky said.
Foolishness. (Score:5, Insightful)
AI development is only just starting. Anything learned about AI is going to be worthless by the time they graduate. Besides that, why would they learn anything when they can simply rely on AI to give them the answer? You give a calculator to a child who is just learning math because they'll only ever learn to punch in numbers to a magic answer machine.
This will not produce valuable workers nor will it provide an education. This is foolishness.
Re: Foolishness. (Score:2)
What fun.
Re: (Score:3)
This is not about that. This is about every student having a personal tutor, specifically designed for educational purposes. Khan academy on steroids.
Will every student use it to actually learn things? No. Will it be far more productive than unsuccessfully trying to ban these tools. Yes.
The genie is out of the bottle, people. Adapt or die.
Re: (Score:2)
Will it be far more productive than unsuccessfully trying to ban these tools. Yes.
You say that with the confidence of a chat bot even though at best this is a wild guess.
Re: Foolishness. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You give a calculator to a child who is just learning math because they'll only ever learn to punch in numbers to a magic answer machine.
We give calculators to kids and then test them on their ability to use it. A calculator is a tool, just like AI is. I think you're missing an important point here. Students can very quickly learn that AI will give them the wrong information and in doing so will learn a real world lesson that definitely will apply after they graduate.
Re: (Score:2)
We give calculators to kids and then test them on their ability to use it.
You don't give calculators to kids when they're learning addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. If you do that they'll never learn. Calculators become common when you start with algebra and it's more about understanding how complex operations work and it makes sense to save time when multiplying or dividing large numbers.
At no point does k-12 mathematics test students on their ability to use a calculator. Any calculations they do with a calculator are ones they've already demonstrated proficie
Re: (Score:2)
AI development is only just starting. Anything learned about AI is going to be worthless by the time they graduate.
This is normal for anything tech related. Being taught one programming language, one design tool, one library, one interface, etc. often means that a new something must be learned once one graduates simply due to the progress of technology. That's normal, and it's definitely not a reason to not learn the something that eventually becomes outdated. It's the learning of the new thing in the first place that is valuable education.
Dumbing Down (Score:4, Interesting)
the stupid is strong... (Score:2)
"In the same way that many students today convert their school-issued Gmail accounts into personal accounts when they graduate, Ms. Belsky envisions graduating students bringing their A.I. chatbots into their workplaces and using them for life."
These "technologies" won't last 6 months, much less 60 years. Students could not care less what they're using as a crutch in the future, only that their lack of learning remains unexposed.
Re: (Score:2)
That quote also reveals how schools are not just willing, but enthusiastically eager to be beholden to big tech companies.
Re: (Score:2)
enthusiastically eager to be beholden to big tech companies
I wouldn't be surprised in the least if there was some payment from the companies to place their tech on campus in this fashion.
Here's your ChatGPT PROFESSOR! (Score:2, Insightful)
We fired the human ones.
Re:Here's your ChatGPT PROFESSOR! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Philosophy I could see (contrary to popular belief, not every university needs to or even does cover every discipline out there, and this is one has very limited economic demand, even if your intent is to go to law school, which is the most common argument for it.) But physics? It's fundamental to so many other things, not to mention still has a great deal of economic demand.
Real Genius (Score:1)
Professor Hathaway, in the flesh, or not [stevehoffman.tv].
Hiring managers: (Score:4, Insightful)
Note which schools are doing this and therefore you shouldn't recruit from in the future.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you? Co-pilot and other AI is being shoved down the throats of the corporate world. It would be quite strange to not hire people specifically experienced with a tool you've been forced to use by your CTO.
Stupid (Score:2)
The students will learn effectively nothing about their subject. They'll learn to ask ChatGPT to produce the stuff they want, though.
However, for working in the fields they're studying for, they'll be completely useless once they finish their education.
Re: (Score:2)
The students will learn effectively nothing about their subject. They'll learn to ask ChatGPT to produce the stuff they want, though.
However, for working in the fields they're studying for, they'll be completely useless once they finish their education.
Without immigrants I'm sure you will find plenty of places for them to work in the fields. Just not their fields.
Not like they weren't already using it (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is doing this too, I forget the exact story, they are giving kids "free" access to Gemini for a year.
The story is about hooking a generation of naive kids to have brand loyalty, then collecting delicious monetizable data for eternity.
Re: (Score:2)
Also the free (at least to students) MS Office includes copilot pro which is also chaptGPT, right?
And deepseek is free to everyone?
I suspect this more about chatGPT data mining than an actual bonus to the students.
Wecome to Campus, here's your MS-Office (Score:3, Informative)
A generation or two ago, it was "Welcome to campus, here's your legal copy of Microsoft Office" for free or for a token price, all to get young adults hooked on the product.
It was the same with credit cards and other things too.
I assume college students got market-droid-driven freebies long before I went to school and I assume it's still that way today.
So they cannot even host their own LLM? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
This is what happens when you hire more and more administrators and less and less academics. Universities have become institutions of profit, not institutions of learning.
Perfect" (Score:3)
So at graduation, chat will be asked to rate each student. And the result, "You get a job, You Get a job, You get crushed..." And remember, this data about each kid will be sold and retained about them forever. I even imagine health insurers, auto insurers, credit score, ... will be customers.
As a CSU Grad... (Score:2)
Fuck them.
CSU Chancellor Mildred García is clearly a moron. "Well, the kids are already cheating, so let's just encourage them!"
The students are the product (Score:2)
100% this is about giving these big tech companies data on the students, and instead of paying the students or giving them a discount, telling them they are getting something for free.
At the risk of sounding overblown, this may be the moment higher education in this country really dies to business. They're behind the eight ball in enough ways already, and this just feels like the final death throes.
Come study at California State! (Score:1)
"Where we teach California's best and brightest to bow down to the robot overlords!!
Get a discounted tuition by joining our athletic program and compete in California State's very own Man v. Robot Thunderdome!"
Let ChatGPT do the grading? (Score:2)
If every student gets a ChatGPT account and ChatGPT individually remembers the prompts, answers, and related context for each student over their time at university, ChatGPT should be able to have a pretty good idea of how the student performs.
Maybe this is about gathering data on students.
Perhaps the professor could ask, "Given the following students in my class, open up their chat history and individually evaluate how much they have learned. Consider how the prompts they have entered correlate to the sylla