How Canadian Universities Are Responding to ChatGPT?

Without a doubt, ChatGPT is changing the way things work. People have complained about ChatGPT potentially replacing jobs due to its capabilities as a learning language model. This machine-learning algorithm is fully capable of answering a variety of questions, including general problem-solving and even coding. Some people have gone so far as to use ChatGPT for professional coding, making it a surprisingly easy method of consolidating data and getting what you want without the effort.

As such, students are using ChatGPT to make things easier, but some go too far by copy-pasting the content they were meant to write themselves. At the same time, teachers are also using ChatGPT to help consolidate data and develop lesson plans without having to spend several hours doing so.

Much like other institutions, Canadian universities are trying to figure out the best course of action concerning the meteoric rise of the learning language model. Here’s how Canadian universities are responding to the incredibly (and disruptive) ChatGPT.

Canadian Universities’ Response to ChatGPT

First off, let’s consider how much ChatGPT helps, rather than disrupts, the way Canadian universities work. For example, you have George Veletsianos, working as a professor at Royal Roads University (Victoria), who doesn’t believe that students who utilize ChatGPT in their work are automatically cheating. Sure, you have professors that feel like ChatGPT is a crutch, but Veletsianos doesn’t see it that way.

Not only does he think that students who use ChatGPT aren’t cheating, but he also believes universities can utilize ChatGPT to help assess new strategies concerning student learning. In fact, ChatGPT can serve as an absolute boon for those who don’t have English as their primary language. As such, some universities have used ChatGPT in their research and overall teaching.

Of course, ChatGPT can accomplish in seconds what used to take hours, and that threatens the position of many professors trying to teach their students the traditional way. The Department of Education in New York City has all but banned ChatGPT due to its disruptive effects on the world of education, but there’s so much more to it.

Benefits of Using ChatGPT in Universities

Another example involves Brendan Benson, an English professor at Pickering College (Newmarket). He noticed his Grade 12 students had essays that all seemed to look the same, or at least had a similar voice. He eventually found ChatGPT to be the culprit, but instead of banning the thing altogether, he decided to brainstorm with his students, asking them how they would accomplish the task and using that information to develop better, more accurate ways to teach his students.

It helped him to instill critical thinking into his students, as he believed that they could still do so much better than AI. That said, AI is still fantastic at consolidating data, which allows professors and students alike to more easily reach academic goals. It would take this entire overview (and more) to speak about how ChatGPT can help with advancing various fields, so we’ll settle with how Canadian universities are managing to benefit from the introduction of such a powerful learning language model.

Challenges and Concerns

Of course, you can’t talk about ChatGPT in the school system without considering the ethical implications and how easy it is to let the learning language model do all the work. It’s the reason why so many school systems are banning the use of AI despite its obvious benefits.

Canadian universities are more lenient than most, as the professors are keenly aware of what could potentially happen when working with AI, rather than against it. These universities consider the negative impact, but instead of focusing on AI as “cheating,” many professors are focusing on AI as a learning tool.

Potential Future Developments

Keep in mind that ChatGPT was released to the general public around November of 2022. Since then it has grown exponentially, showcasing an almost unnerving amount of progress since its release. It’s hard to imagine what it will have advanced to just a few months from now, or even five years down the line.

There’s no denying that future developments concerning ChatGPT and other learning language models are instrumental to how we will tackle AI moving forward. People are worried about the security of their jobs, so it’s natural that AI experiences plenty of pushback.

Disruptive, Game-Changing, and Amazing

These days you have tools such as ZeroGPT trying to eliminate the use of AI in the classroom, but it has inadvertently hurt other AI programs such as Grammarly, which also pushes to make written work look more like AI.

There is currently no perfect method of solving the AI conundrum, but there’s no denying that — for as disruptive as it is — AI is amazing. ChatGPT has so much potential that it’s almost impossible to see what the future holds. That said, more institutions around the world should have a more reserved and optimistic approach concerning AI, similar to Canadian universities.