Noam Chomsky: ChatGPT Is Basically “High-Tech Plagiarism”
In a recent interview, renowned linguist and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky gave his thoughts on the rise of ChatGPT, and its effect on education
What he had to say wasn’t favorable.
As more and more educators struggle with how to combat plagiarism and the use of these chatbots in the classroom, Chomsky gives a clear viewpoint.
For him, the key all lies in how students are taught, and, currently, our educational system is pushing students toward ChatGPT and other shortcuts.
“I don’t think [ChatGPT] has anything to do with education,” Chomsky tells interviewer Thijmen Sprakel of EduKitchen. “I think it’s undermining it. ChatGPT is basically high-tech plagiarism.”
The challenge for educators, according to Chomsky, is to create interest in the topics that they teach so that students will be motivated to learn, rather than trying to avoid doing the work.
Chomsky, who spent a large part of his career teaching at MIT, felt strongly that his students wouldn’t have turned to AI to complete their coursework because they were invested in the material. If students are relying on ChatGPT, Chomsky says it’s “a sign that the educational system is failing. If students aren’t interested, they’ll find a way around it.”
The American intellectual strongly feels like the current educational model of “teaching to test” has created an environment where students are bored. In turn, the boredom turns to avoidance, and ChatGPT becomes an easy way to avoid the education.
While some argue that chatbots like ChatGPT can be a useful educational tool, Chomsky has a much different opinion. He feels that these natural language systems “may be of value for some things, but it’s not obvious what.”
Meanwhile, it appears that schools are scrambling to figure out how to counteract the use of ChatGPT. Many schools have banned ChatGPT on school devices and networks, and educators are adjusting their teaching styles.
Some are turning to more in-class essays, while others are looking at how they can incorporate the technology into the classroom.
It will be interesting to see if the rise of chatbots helps steer us toward a new teaching philosophy and away from the “teaching to test” method that has become the driving force of modern education.
It’s the kind of education that Chomsky says was “ridiculed during the Enlightenment,” and so indirectly, this new technology may force schools to rethink how they ask students to apply their knowledge.
Listen to Noam Chomsky speak about the rise of ChatGPT in education:
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Howdy
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The technology has been around long before it got a pet name of it’s own. Remember the space invaders game in the local pub? Artificial intelligence. Only now it’s become more of an alter-ego – a scapegoat for behaviour not really becoming in certain situations.
It carries no blame as could be applied to an individual, yet it is treated as one.
It does have real uses in education, and has for many years, as a background aid.
So unless you’re out of touch, like the 16 valve brigade of the 80s, or microsoft’s nonsense ‘latest’ touch-screen tech that wooed the world, and you don’t realise it’s past technology relaunched with a fanfare as if it’s never been done before, It’s all ‘shiny shiny’.
It’s nothing of note except for those craving attention,
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Kevin Doyle
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Chomsky finally acknowledges the internet is the easiest ways for lazy kids to cheat.
When Chomsky was a lazy, young punk, he and his trust fund friends would simply pay cash to the school nerd to have their papers written.
Now, he is shocked they give it away for free on the internet!
Kind of like porn/sex. Lots of it free on the internet. No money, nor work involved.
The most pathetic thing he says is to blame not the lazy, unethical students, but the ‘educational system’ for failing the kids!
This is like blaming the police for criminals robbing houses, stealing cars, and mugging people on the subway.
This guy is such a willful turd.
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