Would the field of education be better without Gemini, GPT-4 or DeepSeek? It is an uncomfortable question.
As quickly as OpenAI released the groundbreaking ChatGPT in 2023, the Los Angeles Unified School District became the first major school system to ban it. Soon, Seattle Public Schools were prohibiting generative artificial intelligence on all campus devices. Within months, schools from France to India to Australia outlawed the AI chatbot. Tools like Grammarly or Copilot are often thought to be evil monsters that violate the natural order, so one might qualify for sainthood without using any one of them.
What would the brave new world of education be like when more artificial intelligence tools become available online? Not all people view the transformation as positive as Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy. Khan laughed at the irrational panic triggered by the students' using AI technology. Perhaps never more so than during the pandemic, which we had witnessed spread of rumors from toilet paper crisis to the current plague of ChatGPT infecting students' minds. Educators have been talking about the threat of student cheating, so much so that the entire system of learning appears to be collapsing.
To many, the threat is overwhelming. As one op-ed for Inside Higher Ed put it, "To their shock and dismay, teachers will find that their classrooms has tested positive for GPT." For the most part, the higher education or university examiners are worrying about AI-powered cheating in writing term papers or assignments. Some think about using AI detection tools, and misconduct panel if students' work has been flagged. Others suggest having students work on their writing and papers in class.
Of different reaction to the technology of artificial intelligence, Khan's seems the most brave and exciting. Not blind bravery, but educated bravery. "Everyone was talking about AI enabling cheating by writing papers for students," the American educator says. "But what if it didn't write for them at all? What if, instead, it wrote with them?"
Oh, there is. The genie is out of the bottle. It is time for us to follow the advice of Salman Khan, and throw the bottle away and our outsized fear of generative AI along with it.