ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, has been gaining immense popularity every day since its launch last November. Developed by AI research firm OpenAI, ChatGPT can write everthing from essays to complex analysis for research work.
Also read: Not Everyone Loves ChatGPT: Here’s Why
ChatGPT is capable of presenting information in simple language, writing in various styles, and displaying new creativity such as poems and songs through machine learning.
Students and teachers lost access
New York City school students and teachers can no longer access ChatGPT using devices owned by the Department of Education.
“Due to concerns about negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content, access to ChatGPT is restricted on New York City Public Schools’ networks and devices,” said Jenna Lyle, spokesperson of Department of Education.
Since its launch in November, ChatGPT has raised concerns about academic trickery or dishonesty. As a result, academic firms are now taking action to prevent its presence among students.
The ban was put in place as a precautionary measure due to its potential impact on students’ learning, explained Lyle. “While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not encourage critical thinking or problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success,” said Lyle.
It's funny to see school boards worry about or ban #ChatGPT out of concern for student cheating. AI cannot be returned to its genie-bottle state.
As if teachers aren't going to use it to hammer out a lesson plan in less time than it takes to say "Periodic Table of Elements."
— Dan Pontefract (@dpontefract) January 6, 2023
The company “doesn’t want ChatGPT to be used for misleading purposes in school or anywhere else,” a spokesperson for OpenAI said in an email statement responding to the New York City public school ban.
The company has already started to work on the development of mitigations to help identify text generated by that system, the spokesperson explained.
NYC Schools are Not the First
OpenAI’s chatbot was released on November 30th. The question-and-answer website Stack Overflow banned answers from ChatGPT on December 5th, just five days after its launch. Users of Stack Overflow started to supply a lot of answers, because ChatGPT generates answers quickly.
“The primary problem is that while the answers which ChatGPT produces have a high rate of being incorrect, they typically look like they might be good and the answers are very easy to produce,” says Stack Overflow moderators in a post.
Stack Overflow’s ban is temporary because the answers created by ChatGPT are ‘substantially harmful’ for the site and its users, according to the site’s spokespeople.
“Overall, because the average rate of getting correct answers from ChatGPT is too low, the posting of answers created by ChatGPT is substantially harmful to the site and to users who are asking or looking for correct answers,” Stack Ovderflow said.
Getting ChatGPT to write rap lyrics is a true joy https://t.co/fRFPOdYR9e
— caroline mccarthy 🦝 (@caro) January 6, 2023
Ban also on WeChat
Chinese social media giant Tencent Holdings has also removed mini-programs from WeChat related to ChatGPT.
According to Chinese reports, mini-programs have disappeared, and the WeChat account of users who provided information about ‘how to get ChatGPT’ has been shut down. The ChatGPT applet link displays a message above, according to a translation stating that “the service has been suspended because the content belongs to the platform’s unopened service scope.”
and then