{"id":18380,"date":"2023-01-25T15:17:31","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T20:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/?p=18380"},"modified":"2023-01-25T15:17:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T20:17:35","slug":"lets-chat-about-chatgpt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/article\/lets-chat-about-chatgpt\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Chat about ChatGPT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Caroline Barnhill<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few decades ago, the idea of having a robot magically write your term paper was the wish of many a college student. Today? It doesn\u2019t feel like such a pipe dream. Artificial intelligence is already being widely used across industries \u2013 so it was only a matter of time before it worked its way into the educational and professional creative landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sat down with Bill Rand<\/a>, McLauchlan Distinguished Professor of Marketing and executive director of the Business Analytics and AI Initiative<\/a> at Poole College of Management, to learn more about ChatGPT, its risks and what educators need to keep in mind going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is ChatGPT?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot launched by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence (AI) research lab, in November 2022. It analyzes large amounts of data and computing techniques, which allows it to string together words in a meaningful way. You can ask it a question and the tool scans the internet to find answers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give us some context of what led to the debut of ChatGPT?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There has been a natural evolution of AI. Recently, it showed large-scale promise in the early 2000s with computer vision, a branch of AI that essentially taught computers how to \u201csee\u201d and identify objects. We still have lots of applications of that today, such as driverless cars. From there, using those same technologies, there was a shift toward developing artificial neural networks \u2013 systems built to imitate the human brain. This led to a large interest in generative AI systems that can read a block of text and formulate something similar to it. Later, those efforts expanded to help those models retain what they learned and apply that information to future attempts. So basically, that\u2019s the evolution you see from OpenAI\u2019s GPT-1 to GPT-2 to GPT-3 to GPT-3.5, which is the series under which ChatGPT was developed.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What kinds of things can you ask ChatGPT?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Anything. You can ask ChatGPT to give you a five-paragraph summary of Thoreau\u2019s Walden<\/a>, or you could be like my daughter, who asked it to generate a song about donkeys with big butts. And interestingly, its answers will never be the same. So the song it generates for me about donkey butts would be totally different from my daughter\u2019s song. However, ChatGPT generates language based on the compilation of information it has found \u2013 even if that information isn\u2019t correct. This means that ChatGPT can provide a long, detailed summary of a book that\u2019s completely wrong, since results are based on data that was scraped from all over the web. While pieces of information might seem correct or relevant, the tool cannot ensure whether it\u2019s accurate or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of academics are really concerned about ChatGPT and how it might lead to issues such as plagiarism. What are your thoughts?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From what I\u2019m hearing, ChatGPT has English departments across the country stressed! As I mentioned before, this tool has the ability to write good responses to any prompt you ask it. Even though it\u2019s trained from data on the internet, it generates its own text that is based on that training and so doesn\u2019t perfectly match any previous document. As a result, plagiarism detectors won\u2019t be able to pick up on it. Even if the style is similar to something else that was written, it won\u2019t be copied verbatim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But fear not. Like I said, ChatGPT may be able to provide a summary of a book, but that summary might be completely inaccurate. Also, developers have created something called GPTZero, which detects writing that was autogenerated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This semester, I explained in my syllabus that students can\u2019t use autogenerated text without my permission. I also warned them that I may run their responses through a GPT detector and if I discover that they used an AI tool, they\u2019ll have to redo it as a verbal assignment. On the other hand, I have colleagues who teach AI courses and they are actually encouraging their students to use these tools. Personally, I\u2019m not particularly worried about it being an issue, but I wanted to put a statement about it in my syllabus to keep my students from lazily using AI tools as a substitute for real learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you see ChatGPT being used in higher education in the future?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I posted about ChatGPT on my social media feeds and I\u2019ve gotten some interesting feedback, especially from colleagues and friends of mine who are educators. Some of them are doing cool things \u2013 like asking their students to use ChatGPT to generate an essay, and then having them critique, review and rewrite the essay themselves. That\u2019s a great use of ChatGPT as a teaching tool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond that, for any kind of field where you have to generate and create a lot of content, ChatGPT could help. As professors, we often limit the scope and amount of writing that we assign to students because we don\u2019t want them overwhelmed by the task of putting sentences together when the idea is to teach broader content. In the same way that calculators help us do math faster, ChatGPT helps us generate text faster\u2026 with the caveat that it may be incorrect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How might you use ChatGPT in one of your marketing courses?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In my digital marketing class, my students have to turn in examples of digital marketing content they developed for a client. They could potentially use ChatGPT or a similar tool to generate 100 Instagram posts for the company and then select the best 25. Having a broader base to pull from gives them a better idea of how a social media campaign could run. The same goes for content creators in the real world. They can use ChatGPT to help them generate content, which they could then edit and refine. It elevates everyone and takes them from writing content to editing and refining it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the biggest pitfalls of ChatGPT in its current form?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As I already mentioned, the responses generated by ChatGPT are not necessarily accurate \u2013 because accuracy wasn\u2019t the goal of the tool. Also, bias is always an issue with AI. Machines don\u2019t create knowledge on their own and it\u2019s the same with ChatGPT. It simply reflects the knowledge that\u2019s available on the internet back to us. As a result, any biases present on the internet are going to be present in its responses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, it\u2019s random. Every time you pose a question, you\u2019re going to get a different answer. And the quality of the answer could vary widely. So, when it comes to content creation, we still need a human. Sure, you can ask ChatGPT to write you a song about donkey butts and use the first one that\u2019s given \u2013 but it might be the 65th response that\u2019s going to be a viral hit!<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n

By Caroline Barnhill<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few decades ago, the idea of having a robot magically write your term paper was the wish of many a college student. Today? It doesn\u2019t feel like such a pipe dream. Artificial intelligence is already being widely used across industries \u2013 so it was only a matter of time before it worked its way into the educational and professional creative landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sat down with Bill Rand<\/a>, McLauchlan Distinguished Professor of Marketing and executive director of the Business Analytics and AI Initiative<\/a> at Poole College of Management, to learn more about ChatGPT, its risks and what educators need to keep in mind going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is ChatGPT?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot launched by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence (AI) research lab, in November 2022. It analyzes large amounts of data and computing techniques, which allows it to string together words in a meaningful way. You can ask it a question and the tool scans the internet to find answers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give us some context of what led to the debut of ChatGPT?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There has been a natural evolution of AI. Recently, it showed large-scale promise in the early 2000s with computer vision, a branch of AI that essentially taught computers how to \u201csee\u201d and identify objects. We still have lots of applications of that today, such as driverless cars. From there, using those same technologies, there was a shift toward developing artificial neural networks \u2013 systems built to imitate the human brain. This led to a large interest in generative AI systems that can read a block of text and formulate something similar to it. Later, those efforts expanded to help those models retain what they learned and apply that information to future attempts. So basically, that\u2019s the evolution you see from OpenAI\u2019s GPT-1 to GPT-2 to GPT-3 to GPT-3.5, which is the series under which ChatGPT was developed.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What kinds of things can you ask ChatGPT?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Anything. You can ask ChatGPT to give you a five-paragraph summary of Thoreau\u2019s Walden<\/a>, or you could be like my daughter, who asked it to generate a song about donkeys with big butts. And interestingly, its answers will never be the same. So the song it generates for me about donkey butts would be totally different from my daughter\u2019s song. However, ChatGPT generates language based on the compilation of information it has found \u2013 even if that information isn\u2019t correct. This means that ChatGPT can provide a long, detailed summary of a book that\u2019s completely wrong, since results are based on data that was scraped from all over the web. While pieces of information might seem correct or relevant, the tool cannot ensure whether it\u2019s accurate or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of academics are really concerned about ChatGPT and how it might lead to issues such as plagiarism. What are your thoughts?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From what I\u2019m hearing, ChatGPT has English departments across the country stressed! As I mentioned before, this tool has the ability to write good responses to any prompt you ask it. Even though it\u2019s trained from data on the internet, it generates its own text that is based on that training and so doesn\u2019t perfectly match any previous document. As a result, plagiarism detectors won\u2019t be able to pick up on it. Even if the style is similar to something else that was written, it won\u2019t be copied verbatim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But fear not. Like I said, ChatGPT may be able to provide a summary of a book, but that summary might be completely inaccurate. Also, developers have created something called GPTZero, which detects writing that was autogenerated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This semester, I explained in my syllabus that students can\u2019t use autogenerated text without my permission. I also warned them that I may run their responses through a GPT detector and if I discover that they used an AI tool, they\u2019ll have to redo it as a verbal assignment. On the other hand, I have colleagues who teach AI courses and they are actually encouraging their students to use these tools. Personally, I\u2019m not particularly worried about it being an issue, but I wanted to put a statement about it in my syllabus to keep my students from lazily using AI tools as a substitute for real learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you see ChatGPT being used in higher education in the future?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I posted about ChatGPT on my social media feeds and I\u2019ve gotten some interesting feedback, especially from colleagues and friends of mine who are educators. Some of them are doing cool things \u2013 like asking their students to use ChatGPT to generate an essay, and then having them critique, review and rewrite the essay themselves. That\u2019s a great use of ChatGPT as a teaching tool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond that, for any kind of field where you have to generate and create a lot of content, ChatGPT could help. As professors, we often limit the scope and amount of writing that we assign to students because we don\u2019t want them overwhelmed by the task of putting sentences together when the idea is to teach broader content. In the same way that calculators help us do math faster, ChatGPT helps us generate text faster\u2026 with the caveat that it may be incorrect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How might you use ChatGPT in one of your marketing courses?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In my digital marketing class, my students have to turn in examples of digital marketing content they developed for a client. They could potentially use ChatGPT or a similar tool to generate 100 Instagram posts for the company and then select the best 25. Having a broader base to pull from gives them a better idea of how a social media campaign could run. The same goes for content creators in the real world. They can use ChatGPT to help them generate content, which they could then edit and refine. It elevates everyone and takes them from writing content to editing and refining it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the biggest pitfalls of ChatGPT in its current form?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As I already mentioned, the responses generated by ChatGPT are not necessarily accurate \u2013 because accuracy wasn\u2019t the goal of the tool. Also, bias is always an issue with AI. Machines don\u2019t create knowledge on their own and it\u2019s the same with ChatGPT. It simply reflects the knowledge that\u2019s available on the internet back to us. As a result, any biases present on the internet are going to be present in its responses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, it\u2019s random. Every time you pose a question, you\u2019re going to get a different answer. And the quality of the answer could vary widely. So, when it comes to content creation, we still need a human. Sure, you can ask ChatGPT to write you a song about donkey butts and use the first one that\u2019s given \u2013 but it might be the 65th response that\u2019s going to be a viral hit!<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We sat down with Bill Rand to learn more about ChatGPT, its risks and what educators need to keep in mind going forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":false,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"caption\":\"\",\"displayCategoryID\":77}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139,77],"tags":[],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"series":[159],"class_list":["post-18380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing-and-consumer-behavior","category-newswire","series-trends-and-insights"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":77,"name":"Newswire","slug":"newswire","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":77,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":410,"filter":"raw"},"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18382,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18380\/revisions\/18382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18380"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=18380"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/thought-leadership\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=18380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}