ChatGPT: Exciting AI possibilities for education in 2023

THE emergence of ChatGPT, an artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot, will be a game-changer for the education space globally and, no doubt, in Malaysia too.

“You can no longer give take-home exams or homework,”said Kevin Bryan, a University of Toronto associate professor who runs an AI-based entrepreneurship programme.

When Bryan asked ChatGPT for a response to an MBA strategic management question, the result was “worthy of a B (grade)”.

For a follow-up question, Bryan gave ChatGPT an A, saying its response was “equivalent to a strong undergraduate in economic theory”.

At school level, ChatGPT has reportedly scored 1020/1600 in the SATs (America's version of our STPM/A-Levels), which places it in the 52nd percentile of performers (right in the middle among human candidates).

While that is not exactly a “wow” result, let us not forget that AI improves exponentially every two years - outpacing the well-known Moore’s Law - and this means even our best students will be playing catch-up fairly soon.

So, what is ChatGPT?

Created by the company OpenAI, ChatGPT is described as "a model, trained using a machine learning technique called Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) that can simulate dialogue, answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, challenge incorrect premises and reject inappropriate requests."

More than one million people signed up to test ChatGPT in just five days after its launch on Nov 30. In comparison, it took Facebook 10 months and Instagram 2.5 months to reach the million-user milestone.

It is currently free to try. Google it.

Exciting the educators

The potential of ChatGPT in education is scary but truly exciting.

I typed into the dialogue prompt, “Can you compare the Melaka Sultanate under Portuguese and British rule” – you know, typical Malaysian secondary school history stuff.

Within 10 seconds, ChatGPT crafted a four-paragraph response containing the respective time periods (reminding me of Dutch rule in between), comparing Melaka’s development as a trade and commerce port, and which coloniser contributed more to the building of roads and railways. It even included comparisons of criticisms with regards to labour and resource exploitation.

Again, all within 10 seconds. Absolutely mind-blowing.

In Malaysia, our education system is no stranger to technology. From SchoolNet in the early 2000s, there was 1BestariNet and now DELIMa. We also have TV Pendidikan and digital textbook initiatives to complement existing teaching and learning (T&L) efforts.

These were especially vital during the Covid-19 movement restrictions to ensure continuity in education.

In higher education, there are massive open online courses (MOOCs) alongside ongoing digital micro-credential efforts.

The big difference now is that ChatGPT can fill in the gaps and address arising challenges (such as learning losses and scalability costs), all while accelerating the potential of education technology unlike ever before. Here are five possibilities:

Firstly, it enables personalised learning and development. ChatGPT can analyse and profile students’ strengths, weaknesses, and preferences – academic and co-curricular.

The Education Ministry and schools could use this to adapt their curriculum and teaching methods, on top of identifying necessary interventions.

The analogy is that ChatGPT has been used to help individuals tackle obesity with personalised exercise and diet plans. It details where to buy groceries, recipes and goal setting.

In Malaysia, stunting or impaired growth is a challenge among our students' development and better nutritional practices are needed. AI can create such plans not just for individual students but entire schools.

Secondly, by enhancing online mentoring and language learning. Students can practise their language skills, currently just writing (but eventually likely reading and speaking) with ChatGPT can then provide near-instant feedback. It will then also be able to generate follow-up activities or exercises to complement the learning.

Here’s a fun fact: ChatGPT can interact in Bahasa Malaysia.

Thirdly, in grading and assessment. More broadly, AI can be used to grade and assess students' work, freeing teachers to spend more time providing individualised support. ChatGPT can already come up with fun assessment ideas and topics.

Fourth, there is education content creation. While we already have many resources like Coursera, Khan Academy and more, ChatGPT can create on-demand content which can then be fed into AI that instantly makes videos, presentations and more. These can be further personalised to a classroom based on needs, localities, customs and eventually, values.

And lastly, administrative tasks. ChatGPT can create templates to automate scheduling and record keeping, which allows teachers and school administrators to focus on more important tasks alongside reducing paperwork.

Conclusion: Embrace AI

The World Economic Forum in its 2016 report had famously cited that “65% of the children entering primary school now will ultimately work in a job that doesn't exist today”.

This was largely due to rapidly-improving technology categories – AI, 5G, Big Data, etc – all of which impacted the job market and in-demand skills.

As we enter 2023, the uncertainty remains albeit with renewed hope – thanks to AI.

What is certain is that today’s students are more digitally adept and exposed than ever before. But with this comes all the good and bad of technology – from plagiarism to taking shortcuts in essays, cyber-bullying and online gaming addiction.

Our education system cannot ignore this. With all the fakery (scams, fake news, etc) around our children and students, honing critical and discerning minds is crucial.

It is my hope that Malaysian educators are given the opportunity to learn how to incorporate AI within classrooms, and policymakers must create an enabling environment.

How we respond today in embracing and harnessing AI-powered tools like ChatGPT will determine the type of workforce, leaders, society and nation that we have tomorrow.

On a final point, it is important to note that while ChatGPT and other language models have the potential to be helpful in education, they are not a replacement for human teachers and should be used in conjunction with other teaching and learning resources.

Don’t take my word for it, the paragraph above is from ChatGPT itself.

Here’s to limitless exciting education possibilities. Happy New Year to all readers.