Early last year, tech giants like Microsoft and Google have scrambled to get their predictive text models to market after ChatGPT, a large language artificial intelligence platform, shocked the world with its eerily lifelike but not-quite-perfect ability to carry on conversations and pump out essays, computer code, and blurbs of text about anything and everything users ask for. Launched in November 2022—before the world was really ready for it, some might argue—ChatGPT quickly amassed more than 100 million users and sparked a worldwide debate about the increasingly blurred lines between AI and human intelligence.
Could the technology be a tool for students who could use it to quickly build an outline for a project? Could it push professors to shift their focus away from written assignments and toward project work and research? Is ChatGPT just a computer that guesses the next word, or could it be used to solidify an autocratic regime’s grip on information?
As a part of our Critical Conversations event series, experts in computer science, writing, economics, and interactive media at WPI hosted a panel to hosted a forum to explore the possibilities and potential pitfalls of the technology.
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