AI breakthrough ChatGPT raises alarm over student cheating
I&#x27;ve heard this concern a lot lately. It&#x27;s understandable. But I think it&#x27;s shortsighted.<p>Does using a calculator make you a cheater at math? No, you still needed to understand the concepts.<p>Does using ChatGPT make you a cheater at school? While ultimately that&#x27;s up to the schools to decide, I would argue it shouldn&#x27;t. Because you need to have enough understanding to ask the right question as well as to be able to spot what&#x27;s wrong in the answer.<p>For example, I was helping my kid out with their Java homework and we we&#x27;re both stuck for a good hour. Finally I loaded the question into ChatGPT.<p>The answer that came back helped us solve the problem. But we didn&#x27;t just cut and paste. We looked at that solution and compared it to our own to find the problem.<p>I don&#x27;t consider that cheating. Others may feel differently.<p>Ultimately, I think of this as augmented thinking. In the real world, we all use whatever tools we have at our disposal. If in the real world we have access to Google and calculators and now AI chatbots, why should we train and educate ourselves as if those don&#x27;t exist?<p>I&#x27;d rather my kids learn to use every tool at their disposal to be as fast, efficient, and effective as possible. And unlike paying someone to do your homework, this is something everyone can do, not just those with discretionary income. So I really have no problem with this at all.