Educators have said using ChatGPT is cheating, but now they are using AI to write syllabi and exams: Professor

As educators debate whether students should be allowed to use artificial intelligence for assignments, one professor told Fox News that teachers themselves are using the tech to help with their lessons.

“I know faculty who are using ChatGPT to help write syllabi and to write exams,” a University of California, Berkeley professor of computer science, Hany Farid, told Fox News. “I’ve seen professors using it to help design courses, write exam problems, write homework problems.”

“It is both an enabling and a potentially problematic technology,” he continued. “But will it disrupt education? Yeah.”

ChatGPT could score 100% on Farid’s introduction computer science course, he told Fox News.  (Frank Rumpenhorst/picture alliance via Getty Images)

WHAT IS CHATGPT?

ChatGPT is a generative AI chatbot capable of having conversations with humans, suggesting edits to computer programming code, writing songs, poems, movie scripts and more. In education, ChatGPT has been a controversial tool some teachers perceive as a threat to traditional pedagogy.

New York City Public Schools banned ChatGPT in classrooms earlier this year only to reverse course after weighing educational benefits the tech provides. AI has also proven to be a useful tool in helping students with their college applications. 

Students have told Fox News they’ve used ChatGPT to cheat in class. And teachers know AI can ace their courses.

PROFESSOR ADMITS CHATGPT COULD GET 100% ON EVERY ASSIGNMENT AND EXAM IN HIS CLASS:

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“I could absolutely, 100% have every single one of my students do every single one of my homeworks and exams and exercise with ChatGPT and get 100%,” Farid said. “ChatGPT can solve all my problems in an intro to computer science course.”

Farid described a “dystopian” scenario in which instructors use ChatGPT to create classes, students use it to solve their homework and teachers then use it to grade the students’ AI-generated work. 

School districts across the country have grappled with whether ChatGPT in the classroom should be allowed. (iStock)

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

“And now the question you got to ask is what are we doing here?” Farid told Fox News. “When we are trying to give feedback to students, not just a letter grade, I’m not convinced that the technology is there yet to be able to do this.”

“If I’m creating the content and you are solving the problem with ChatGPT, you don’t need the humans in the loop anymore,” he added. “That’s my dystopian vision of the future of higher ed.”

Teachers have, however, used ChatGPT in creative ways to help their students learn, such as having it translate Shakespeare and create songs to remember important math formulas. More than 80% of teachers who have used ChatGPT to enhance teaching and learning have said it has positively impacted their classes, according to a July survey from the Walton Family Foundation and Impact Research. 

ChatGPT can be used on phones and computers to quickly answer questions or produce original content. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

Farid said he has colleagues who told their students to write essays using ChatGPT, then asked them to edit the outcome. The goal was to improve students’ revision skills. 

“So you’re now learning an editing skill versus a first draft skill,” the Berkeley professor said. “I think that’s a really clever use.”

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“I don’t want a computer to replace me,” Farid told Fox News. “But we know [ChatGPT is] going to get better.”

Click here to watch Farid explain how college professors are using ChatGPT.