Homework and A.I. Is it cheating?
Guess not because Harvard shows you how
We’ve all heard the hype now. “Simply type a question into ChatGPT, and you’ll get back an entire paper to turn in at school (or work!)”
Is that cheating?
Well, yes.
But no.
Or should it be?
Does it even matter?
One quick scroll through any parenting group online, and you’re sure to find this question with a barrage of passionate YES! cries and NO! rebuttals and everything in between.
Of course depending on the group you’re asking, the answers lean heavily on one side or the other.
Yes, it’s cheating.
You’re not doing the work. A teacher assigned you to research a topic and write a paper about it. You didn’t research it, and you didn’t write about it. You failed the task.
“No one is going to learn how to write!”
“We’re producing a generation of people who can’t express themselves!”
“We’re producing a generation of people who can’t THINK for themselves!”
No, it’s not cheating.
“This is just like the calculator. Our teachers all told us we weren’t going to be walking around with calculators in our pocket, and look at us now!”
“They’re using the tools available today to complete the task they were given. Good for them! They’re going places!”
“There will always be a cowboy mad about the car parked at their old hitching post.”
All valid responses, if not a tad dramatic.
But let’s break it down.
Whether or not it’s currently considered cheating, should it be?
Take the research part of the assignment.
Is it not research anymore because it happened more quickly than it did before?
Let’s say your boss asks you to find out the answer to a medical question.
Is it research if you read five med school textbooks and draw your own conclusion? What if you find the answer in black and white on the first page?
Is it still research if you use Google to find the answer on a reputable site like nih.gov or mayclinic.org?
What if you just called your doctor and asked?
Current LLMs (large language models like ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing) are known to make factual errors. So, as long as fact-checking is a part of the assignment, maybe researching in this way can be a learning experience they didn’t expect.
Now let’s look at the second part of the assignment: write about it.
Do we want to teach our kids how to reorganize and regurgitate information that’s already available?
Or do we want to teach them to use that information to make something new? To combine the facts they can find with the stories only they can tell.
Do we want them to present an argument? Convince someone to do something? Convince someone to buy something?
No one is reading 10-page papers about anything anymore — especially without a compelling storyline. So, why are we assigning them? Why are we getting upset that a computer can spit out information that can be found anywhere else?
We don’t need to throw out all writing assignments or go back to blue books or make kids write surprise essays in class. (Where do you find that kind of assignment in the working world?)
They need to learn what makes writing effective and memorable and inspiring.
Assignment idea 💡 for school or home
Write a paper about a rule you wish you could change.
Ask ChatGPT to write a paper about it, compare the two, and combine them (keeping your own voice and personal touch.)
Ask ChatGPT to edit the new, combined paper for different purposes. Change up the audience, the medium, or the purpose. Maybe an email to the principal about the change or a social media post for quick dispersal or a speech to rally your classmates at school.
Writing a paper just to write a paper isn’t going to cut it anymore. And that’s great news for practical, useable learning you can’t cheat your way through.
What does Harvard have to say?
Check out the student use case examples Harvard wrote about last week. Read the overview first, then dive right in.
I read an interesting article about AI and media/marketing, and the author said AI is really just "distilling data into words," whereas People add the soul to it. So there's a balance in how we use AI. In regard to kids and homework, there maybe isn't a whole lot of soul in what they produce, but there should be. :)
It's fascinating stuff to think about, isn't it? The world is changing so quickly right now.