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Does Worrying About Cheating With ChatGPT Miss Larger Point?

Dean Spake addresses AI's impact on preparing graduates to succeed

The debate over using artificial intelligence (AI) writing tools such as ChatGPT continues to flare up across college campuses. Setting aside all issues with plagiarism, how important is it for college graduates to be able to write effectively on their own, regardless of whether they're writing a social media post, article, email or other web content?

Kent State Today invited Deborah Spake, Ph.D., dean of Kent State's Ambassador Crawford College of Business and Entrepreneurship, to weigh in on the impact AI versus human writing is having on the business world our graduates are now entering. Below Spake shares her point-of-view on this evolving technology.

Deborah F. Spake, dean of ºÚÁÏÍø's College of Business Administration
Deborah F. Spake, dean of ºÚÁÏÍø's College of Business Administration, has been named a 2021 recipient of a lifetime achievement award.

As a business school dean, I often advocate for modern approaches to business education from new pedagogical approaches to the use of new technologies. We are, after all, educating students for jobs of the future and the future most certainly includes modern technology such as artificial intelligence (AI).

In recent years, I admit that I have been enamored with AI products such as self-driving cars, robots completing simple tasks, and voice-activated virtual assistants.  I previously viewed these forms of artificial intelligence as modern conveniences with no downside to their use – a simple fact of our modern age.

For me, ChatGPT changed that paradigm. On the one hand, students should be aware of and proficient in the use of technologies that employers embrace. ChatGPT offers businesses the ability to quickly write for a variety of contexts from marketing messages to detailed reports. 

ChatGPT is an AI writing tool

On the other hand, its weaknesses are well-documented such as making up references or convincingly lying when at a loss for an answer. 

Students using ChatGPT will need to develop the skills to identify and correct these errors.

While ChatGPT provides answers to inquiries, college graduates will continue to need higher-order thinking skills for problem-solving, strategic thinking, and synthesizing information from a variety of sources that might include ChatGPT. Educators today worry about students cheating by using ChatGPT, but are we missing the point? Should the real concern be the greater need to develop our students’ higher-order thinking skills so that they can effectively use AI tools and other technologies in the workplace?

 

Learn more about degree programs at Kent State's Ambassador Crawford College of Business and Entrepreneurship

 

Top photo courtesy: StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay.   

POSTED: Thursday, July 6, 2023 10:22 AM
Updated: Thursday, August 3, 2023 04:00 PM