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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

NEA - ChatGTP

59 replies

Cliff1975 · 21/03/2023 16:54

So, my DS2 who is in year 13 has just completed his History NEA. We have had a letter home from school to say he has been using Chatbot GTP and this will be reported to the exam board. Does anyone have experience?

OP posts:

QuertyGirl · 23/03/2023 09:16

yoozanaym · 23/03/2023 08:28

But it’s the automation of the process that’s the issue

It's the automation that's the power of it - that's why it's called "artificial intelligence" - it's getting closer to what a human brain does, and in some cases will do a better job than some human brains. Schools need to acknowledge it in their policies and make it clear what it can and can't be used for, because it's not going away.

That's also it's weakness.

It's only as good as the material it feeds on. The user has no control over it. Nor do I imagine that most users have the slightest clue how it actually works.

Google the search engine, historically has a blindingly simple algorithm. It lists websites in order of how many other websites link to them. It's elegant simplicity at its best.

I'm not so sure of this one. The user cannot audit or quality check either the material that it's feeding on or, the code behind it.

I'd stay well clear until it's more transparent

QuertyGirl · 23/03/2023 09:21

Good intro:

zapier.com/blog/how-does-chatgpt-work/

It spits out words, not knowledge.

user18 · 23/03/2023 09:32

Whether it’s good at what it does is irrelevant. Whether it is the stuff of our future (I suspect it is and it will be the end of many jobs as we know them now) is irrelevant to this thread. The point is that it has no place in schools when kids are either doing homework or doing assessed coursework. It’s simply cheating. As such coursework is likely to become a thing of the past.

yoozanaym · 23/03/2023 09:38

QuertyGirl · 23/03/2023 09:21

Good intro:

zapier.com/blog/how-does-chatgpt-work/

It spits out words, not knowledge.

Yes, but so do many humans! 🙂

Sparklfairy · 23/03/2023 14:06

Middletoleft · 23/03/2023 08:38

Very interesting @Sparklfairy Do you mind if I ask how you got involved in the testing?

Show quote history

Sorry, I wasn't involved in the testing, I just tested it myself! I do some freelance writing occasionally, and the industry is split right now between people panicking that Chat GPT et al are going to decimate the need for human writers, and companies worried that their writers are 'cheating' by using Chat GPT to churn out work faster and make more money.

I've heard of people getting their work thrown back saying it's AI written, so I ran my own (written before Chat GPT came out last year and I hadn't even used Grammarly etc) through it. There's a scale of 'very likely AI, likely AI, neutral, likely human written and very likely human written. Some pieces came back with very likely human written, some only 'likely' which can be enough for some companies to not pay or threaten to sack you.

I haven't had any problems with accusations but IMO it's impossible for them to prove whether it is or isn't AI that wrote it. Multiple software programs can come back with different results. The problem full-time freelancers have is they can lose work through no fault of their own.

The consequences could be bad for OP's son as this technology is so new; if the exam board blindly accepts the results of the software through ignorance I'm not sure he'd have much argument. Even Google has had to accept that they can't accurately detect AI articles for search engine results and have now changed their criteria for rankings basically allowing them 'if it's likely to benefit the reader'.

Middletoleft · 23/03/2023 15:49

@Sparklfairy again very interesting. Thankyou very much for your post. Must watch this space given the ramifications to students and then the ensuing fallout.

Postapocalypticcowgirl · 23/03/2023 18:31

yoozanaym · 23/03/2023 07:16

"Research" for essay writing has always been about reading other people's work, pulling out relevant points, re-writing them in your own words, and organising them in a structured way. ChatGPT is just automating the process. But it can't "sense-check" as well as a human can, and it can only ever be as good as the source information it uses. It will get better in future, and have lots of uses. Schools need to have clear policies on it - their students can't become the AI native experts of the future if they're not allowed to play with cutting-edge AI tech at school, so schools shouldn't block it, but obviously history students shouldn't be using it when writing their assessments.

It isn't automating the process because it makes up citations etc. It's not a useful resource in this sort of scenario.

Middletoleft · 23/03/2023 19:53

MrsBennetsPoorNerves · 21/03/2023 17:00

Ah, OK. The last I heard, it couldn't be picked up by Turnitin etc, but maybe that's all changed now.

Show quote history

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves Apologies I was talking earlier to my family member of the academic type on the subject. I was told, in no uncertain fashion, that I'd got the wrong end of the stick. Sorry about that. @Sparklfairy knows more about it.

slinks off in ignorance

KindergartenKop · 24/03/2023 06:57

The teachers will have suggested he look at the work of Joe Bloggs and Anne Smith, as they are the leading historians in this area, and to make sure he explores factors x, y and z in his work.

If his essay sounds a bit weird, plus completely ignores those historians and looks at factors f, g and h instead, then teachers will smell a rat.

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