With how perfectly ChatGPT writes in grammar and spelling, is high school English class going to be cancelled? Do we even need those human teachers when ChatGPT can explain, teach, and write for us way better than they ever can? What can those human high school English class teachers do that ChatGPT doesn't already do way better in every way and doesn't demand union pay and excessive summer vacation time?
While it's interesting to speculate about where AI is going, ChatGPT isn't a competent writer yet. It's pretty terrible, actually. The headlines all talk about how it has "passed" various exams, but if you actually read the stories, it's getting close to the lowest scores. The real story is grade inflation; if you can put together coherent sentences that are basically on the correct topic, you're getting a gentleman's "C."
As for teaching how to write, ChatGPT can't do that at all right now. That requires understanding how people think and learn.
Now, it's pretty cool how good it's gotten in such a short period of time, and it's likely to keep getting better. I think in the short-to-medium term, it's going to be a useful tool for people to write first drafts, on simple topics, under time pressure (e.g., journalism). It will also probably be a widespread cheating tool for poor students. It will probably also lead to much better automated proofreading.
The real threat to teachers is just better teachers. At present, the very best teachers are mostly teaching the same number of students as the very worst teachers, which is stupid. I think that 20 years from now, a lot of education will involve heavy use of recorded content from superstar teachers, with support from teachers who act more like tutors.
ChatGPT isn't a competent writer yet. It's pretty terrible, actually.
Not true. There are lots of examples over the past few weeks of people not being able to tell the difference between something that ChatGPT wrote and something that a human wrote.
With how perfectly ChatGPT writes in grammar and spelling, is high school English class going to be cancelled? Do we even need those human teachers?
There is a lot of human to human interaction that needs to take place in order to get kids to learn. Most kids won't learn much from a computer/robot.
Kids already learn a hell of a lot from gamified learning, watching videos, and from all kinds of online sources including even social media. It’s harder for them to sit stationary in a traditional class without one-on-one attention. The two types of teachers have complementary pros and cons.
With how perfectly ChatGPT writes in grammar and spelling, is high school English class going to be cancelled? Do we even need those human teachers?
There is a lot of human to human interaction that needs to take place in order to get kids to learn. Most kids won't learn much from a computer/robot.
Most kids don't learn much from high school English teachers either. When was the last time I ever used Shakespeare to fix my car?
Kids will learn a lot better from ChatGPT that doesn't get tired ever and it can even speak better than most humans by using one of the numerous AI voices out there.
The real threat to teachers is just better teachers. At present, the very best teachers are mostly teaching the same number of students as the very worst teachers, which is stupid. I think that 20 years from now, a lot of education will involve heavy use of recorded content from superstar teachers, with support from teachers who act more like tutors.
Just skip the videos of human teachers and go straight to using ChatGPT combined with DALL-E and any of the AI voices to generate completely artificial video lessons. It will be far better than watching a boring video of a human teacher in front of a chalk board scribbling endless words as if that is supposed to compete with the production values of AI.
It is also far cheaper to use the AI to generate content than to pay any human teacher. You also avoid the possibility of the numerous child abuse cases perpetrated by some human teachers, that alone is worth orders of magnitude more than any human teaching no matter how good they think they are.
There is a lot of human to human interaction that needs to take place in order to get kids to learn. Most kids won't learn much from a computer/robot.
Most kids don't learn much from high school English teachers either. When was the last time I ever used Shakespeare to fix my car?
That's not a problem with human teachers, that's a problem with the curriculum. And I agree that lot of the high school curriculum needs to be changed in order to be more useful for real world situations.
Most kids don't learn much from high school English teachers either. When was the last time I ever used Shakespeare to fix my car?
That's not a problem with human teachers, that's a problem with the curriculum. And I agree that lot of the high school curriculum needs to be changed in order to be more useful for real world situations.
But that's a different topic than AI vs humans.
Actually, it's the same topic. ChatGPT has an enormous amount of the text from the Internet saved in it's "neural network" and is far more knowledgeable than any human teacher be it English or not. A human English teacher would have problems teaching subjects outside of English class whereas ChatGPT has no such limitations. ChatGPT is just far more capable and knowledgeable than any high school teacher. It can quickly teach you anything you want to know whereas a human teacher would take weeks or months coming up with a teaching plan.
That's not a problem with human teachers, that's a problem with the curriculum. And I agree that lot of the high school curriculum needs to be changed in order to be more useful for real world situations.
But that's a different topic than AI vs humans.
Actually, it's the same topic. ChatGPT has an enormous amount of the text from the Internet saved in it's "neural network" and is far more knowledgeable than any human teacher be it English or not. A human English teacher would have problems teaching subjects outside of English class whereas ChatGPT has no such limitations. ChatGPT is just far more capable and knowledgeable than any high school teacher. It can quickly teach you anything you want to know whereas a human teacher would take weeks or months coming up with a teaching plan.
You obviously don't understand how schools come up with curriculum. Teachers aren't winging it. They just don't teach whatever the heck they want. The schools have rules and guidelines that teachers need to follow.
And just because AI has more information at it's fingertips than a human teacher doesn't automatically mean that the students would learn more.
I'm serious. I would have learned a ton more in high school if I just used ChatGPT instead of sitting in English class making up BS about some useless metaphor or allegory that I don't give 2 cents about but the human teacher thinks it is pinnacle of human knowledge. Instead of paying the teachers unions hundreds of billions every year, we could cut that to be a tiny fraction.
With how perfectly ChatGPT writes in grammar and spelling, is high school English class going to be cancelled? Do we even need those human teachers when ChatGPT can explain, teach, and write for us way better than they ever can? What can those human high school English class teachers do that ChatGPT doesn't already do way better in every way and doesn't demand union pay and excessive summer vacation time?
We are in what's regarded to be a great school district. There is no actual teaching. The classroom teachers miss at least 40% of class time due to meetings, maternity leave (both men and women), etc all more important then teaching.
The students are expected to follow directions. Those directions are:
1. watch the video
2. answer the questions in the assigned class work.
Nothing would change. I can just imagine Jim Mora: "teaching? ..."
The bigger question is: what do we do with the Unions?
The process of writing, with drafts, revisions feedback and motivation from a good teacher is what is needed to learn.
You can watch videos on pole vaulting or discus throwing all day but still need a teacher to break down your technique and give specific cues and drills that work for you.
I was listening to a college basketball podcast and heard the phrase demonstrating is not teaching.
There is so so so very much that needs to change in the schools but we are frozen in time unable to make any changes. I graduated HS 35 years ago and I can walk into a HS English class and it's virtually unchanged. Someone that graduated 30 years before me could have said the same thing. We are doing things in 2023 that aren't a heckuva lot different that 1923. That's not a good thing.