NORFOLK, Va. — Artificial Intelligence, otherwise called, “A.I.,” is advancing more in the public’s eye.
It's becoming available everywhere, and we mean everywhere. It's accessible on your phone, tablet, and laptop. We have all of those devices in our offices, homes, and just everyday life in society.
You’ve probably heard about widely available online platforms like ChatGPT where you can ask the A.I. service almost anything and it will feed back information. Now, it’s quickly entering our classrooms.
A.I. experts like Dr. Isaac Osunmakinde, an associate professor of computer science at Norfolk State University, said it's something we can't avoid in the classroom or at home. He believes it should be embraced.
Osunmakinde uses various A.I. platforms to help his students learn how to incorporate it into business technology and their everyday lives.
“We’ve got many A.I. platforms that are publicly accessible,” Osunmakinde explained, referring to a few he uses in his courses.
In the classroom, teachers could use A.I. to clear out a long list of tasks, such as grading assignments, so they can focus on teaching their students. For students, it can be used things such as learning exercises.
You can ask ChatGPT almost anything. Even if it's a silly request, like asking it to create a haiku about tacos or a 500-word essay on Abraham Lincoln's main impacts during his presidency, the platform will create it for you.
A.I. can do more than that, including mimicking a person's voice to make you feel like a person is talking.
It begs the question: At what point is using A.I. cheating or considered plagiarism?
“Just requesting an answer and copying it word for word, then that could be an abuse," Osunmakinde said. "In that case, the students are not actually learning what is expected.”
However, he said the use of this service in the classroom and at home is inevitable in today’s day and age. And it all comes down to checks and balances with utilizing this technology.
NSU's Computer Science Department Chair and Associate Professor, Dr. Felicia Doswell, agreed. She said not only is A.I. so widely available, but it’s also already so deeply embedded into our daily lives, even if we don’t realize it.
“ChatGPT wasn’t providing any new information that Google wasn’t providing before,” Doswell, who also specializes in computer science at Norfolk State University, said. “A.I. is bringing us ways to quickly get information and to quickly train our students, but it also can be used by the teachers in order to train them and show them how to utilize that information properly.”
When asked about age limits for using A.I., Osunmakinde said children will start touching upon tools like ChatGPT since they're already becoming accustomed to digital technology in today's society.
The experts added it’s best to talk to your children at home about the use of A.I. with homework and projects. This will help keep a clear message from the classroom to the dinner table.