If you’re a student in this current age, you’ve likely used ChatGPT. Whether you use it for writing essays or summarizing notes, A.I. capabilities have continued to expand. That expansion has brought more use of generative A.I. for all kinds of assignments. The reliance students have on generative AI has now become so widespread that universities are beginning to implement policies specifically for A.I. used in submitted work.
It’s understandable to want to use ChatGPT for school. Maybe you’ve had a long day and just want to get that tedious assignment done without worrying about it. Or, it’d just be a lot easier to type in a short prompt, rather than spend hours on an essay.
However, there are some worrying implications of the regular use of A.I. Cheating on school assignments isn’t a new phenomenon. But AI-reliant schoolwork is a brand new scene. Generative A.I. software still isn’t perfect, so it is very probable that the work it outputs is wholly incorrect or incomplete. Another (obvious) flaw is that students don’t effectively learn anything by using ChatGPT for every assignment. A related point that I don’t see brought up much is that students can instinctively give up whenever an assignment is challenging.
It may not even matter in future discussions. OpenAI (ChatGPT’s parent company) and Disney announced a $1 billion deal where Disney would give its intellectual property to OpenAI. It was then abruptly announced on Mar. 24th that the deal was off. Additionally, Sora (A.I. video branch) would be shut down entirely. The BBC highlighted Sora’s $1.4 million in revenue compared to ChatGPT’s $1.9 billion revenue. The BBC also reported that there was too much risk because of non-consensual imagery, misinformation, and major copyright infringement. Even without considering Sora, OpenAI was still determined to be unprofitable from the BBC’s (and many analysts’) standpoint.
At first glance, this deal doesn’t seem to have a large impact on A.I. as a whole. But the elimination of this deal has suggested to many that the overall hype of A.I. has begun to fizzle out. It’s questionable if the purpose of generative A.I. is even sustainable, let alone the resources it uses. Tech entrepreneurs have strongly pushed the supposed greatness of A.I. over the past couple of years. But if it isn’t financially viable for businesses, is it even worth continuing to push?
Overall, the future of A.I. is a vast discussion. There’s no clear answer on where it will go. Personally, I do think that there can be useful applications for A.I. in all fields. But the lack of regulation and increasing financial pitfalls have made it hard to believe the supposed greatness of A.I. It may be the best choice to start moving away from using A.I. in daily life if it has a chance of becoming obsolete.