Author Biography

Carson Coleman is a dedicated learner who enjoys taking up any challenge. Majoring in Electrical Engineering, he has a boundless creativity that extends as far as his curiosity takes him. In his free time, Carson loves running, being with friends, and exploring the outdoors. Whether he’s at the beach or camping in the woods, he cherishes spending time with loved ones. He hopes to inspire and make an impact on his three younger sisters as they follow in his footsteps.

This essay was composed in April 2023 and uses MLA documentation.

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) in the past decade has been revolutionary. A computer has the capability of answering any inquiry that one might have. For example, a chatbot was able to compose a biblical verse in the style of the king James bible explaining how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR (Ptacek). While this example is comical, it goes to show how capable AI chatbot technology is. This technology is advancing rapidly, and AI will soon replace many workers (Cerullo). The qualifications for jobs are changing, which will have a direct impact on how schools teach their students. Educational systems will have to decide how to integrate AI chatbots.

AI chatbots allow students to create content that seems human-written in a matter of seconds. This can range from a thesis statement to an entire essay. AI chatbots are relatively new so there are many debates on what should be done. Some people say that banning chatbots from schools is needed while others say that students should be allowed access to chatbots. In this essay I will be addressing why chatbots should be allowed for student-use. The reasons being that chatbots are here to stay, can help students learn faster, are free, have 24/7 access to instantaneous information and support, can eliminate certain repetitive tasks, are simple to use, and can help both teachers and students in offering personal feedback.

AI chatbots are the next big technological advancement. This AI technology will not be going away. Take for example smartphones; in today’s world, smartphones have become an integral part of our lives. From communication to entertainment, work to leisure, these pocket-sized devices have revolutionized the way we interact with the world around us. It is hard to imagine a world without smartphones. The same is now happening in AI technology, specifically AI chatbots. The practical use and popularity of chatbots is growing rapidly. It will become almost impossible to avoid AI chatbots in the near future. Just how smartphones will not be disappearing anytime soon, neither will AI chatbots. For that reason it is important that society learns how to use chatbots as a tool.

Even though chatbots are here to stay, some individuals have expressed concerns with AI chatbots and argue that chatbots should be banned in schools. The concern with chatbots is that it is a lot easier for students to cheat. Charity Dodd, an educational blogger, says “some educators are reluctant to use tools like ChatGPT (an AI chatbot) with students due to fears of cheating, lack of original and critical thinking and ethical implications.” The reason why AI chatbots can be used to cheat more easily is because plagiarism detectors cannot detect AI content. In an article called “Is Using AI Content Plagiarism?”, it describes the reason why plagiarism is not detected: “The goal of these tools is to generate content that seems human-written. The tool may use synonyms to ensure a diverse text, similar to how rewriting tools use synonyms to avoid plagiarism detection.” Later in the article it says, “Like spun content, AI technology can generate content that can pass many plagiarism detectors, such as Grammarly, without the writer doing any work.” This shows clearly that AI chatbot technology could be used by students to cheat quite easily.

However, technology has always opened new doors that allow for more cheating. Take for example phones, phones can help students cheat in a variety of ways: phones allow students to communicate with other students, take pictures and send answers, and search for answers with search engines like google. While it was recorded that about 76% of U.S. schools in 2020 had placed a cellphone ban (Walker), schools cannot control student phone-use at home. Policies have been put in place to limit cell phone cheating, but it really comes down to teaching correct principles to students. AI chatbots could be banned in schools, but that does not mean that students will not use them at home. A different method and approach must be taken to ensure that students do not use chatbots to cheat: teaching students how to use chatbots as a tool responsibly.

There are plenty of people that have confidence in chatbots and believe that students will use them as a tool. In an interview for Chris Caren, the CEO of an educational teaching company, they said “We know that AI can be a force for good in education when the tools are accessed equitably, transparently, and skillfully” (Lee). Here Caren is showing that he trusts AI chatbot technology. Dodd who was mentioned earlier gives some guidelines on how teachers can help their students use AI chatbots responsibly: “Students must understand that all work submitted must be their own original work. Using AI-generated content as their own work is considered plagiarism and will not be tolerated.” Dodd understands that it is easier for students to cheat and it must be made clear that using AI-generated content to produce plagiarized writing is not allowed.

Chatbots, if used responsibly, give students a major advantage in learning because they are available 24/7 and are free. Jake Mallow, a tech writer for an educational online company, says, “One of the key benefits of ChatGPT is that it is available 24/7 to provide support and guidance to students. Whether you need help with a difficult assignment or just want to ask a quick question, ChatGPT is always there to help.” Teachers and professors have their own lives and will not always be available to help students. Chatbots can help students at any time. If students prefer to do their homework at night or early morning, they can receive help from chatbots without bothering anyone. Chatbots are also free which makes it so anyone with internet can access them. In 2019 in the United States, it was found that 95% of 3- to 18-year olds had home internet access (Children’s Internet Access). This means that the majority of students will have access to AI chatbots for free.

Businesses are using chatbots for the same reason: they are free and can be accessed 24/7. Since businesses are implementing AI chatbots it only makes sense that students learn to do the same. On emplifi, a business online that uses chatbots, they said, “Unlike human agents, customer service chatbots are always available and can respond to customer queries around the clock. That makes it easier and more cost-effective for businesses to provide the convenient ‘always-on’ customer service that consumers increasingly demand.” Businesses are using chatbots because they save the company resources and time. Schools need to do the same and allow for chatbot use because it will save the schools time and resources. Schooling is meant to prepare students for jobs, and if that can be done faster, more cost-efficiently, and with less resources, then schools should do it.

Technology has allowed for humans to develop and gain knowledge at a faster pace than ever before in history. In this context, we might consider how AI can help us focus on learning tasks most relevant to our lives while utilizing AI to complete the less relevant tasks. Subjects that were once discovered by the most intelligent beings are now being taught to middle-schoolers. Take for example the discovery of the atom, most of human history had no idea of such a thing until the 1800s (History of the Atom). Now almost every student comes out of high school knowing what an atom is, but not nearly as many will know proper farming techniques. This is important because some knowledge is not needed and some tasks are not needed. It is no longer needed for every kid to know how to work on a farm. Many repetitive tasks done by humans, such as creating reports for companies, are being done by AI chatbots. If chatbots take over these jobs, then schools will no longer need to prepare students to do such jobs. Schools would need to transition their teaching curriculums into teaching the students how to use AI chatbots to do the job for them.

AI chatbots can make learning more effective and efficient in many ways as previously shown. Chatbots can also be very accurate. According to ChatGPT, AI chatbots have access to massive amounts of data “consisting of billions of words from a variety of sources, such as books, articles, and websites.” This data allows AI chatbots to generate responses and answer questions on a wide range of topics. The only drawback is that some chatbots such as ChatGPT only have information and data up until late 2021. This means that students cannot use ChatGPT to research recent topics. Technological advances will soon make it so that many chatbots have updated information. The chatbot industry is projected to reach a market size of about 3.6 billion dollars by 2030 with an annual growth rate of 24% (Durach and Diachenko). This shows how much development is happening in the AI industry. Other than the current limited data, chatbots allow for students to find answers to whatever they need. This allows students to learn and gain knowledge faster than ever. Currently lots of time has to be used to search for answers, but chatbots can do the searching for us in a matter of seconds. Chatbots can also provide sources to the information if needed. The use of chatbots by students allows students to spend less time searching and more time learning.

The design of chatbots makes it perfect to receive answers quickly. Mallow says “ChatGPT is designed to provide quick and accurate answers to your questions. Whether you’re looking for information on a specific topic or need help understanding a difficult concept, ChatGPT can provide you with the answers you need.” Students will have no problem navigating chatbots as they are simple and easy to use. Mallow shows that chatbots are beneficial for students because of how simple they are.

Chatbots also help teachers by doing certain repetitive tasks for them. Caren in their interview says, “For teachers these Large Language Models have the potential to massively scale summarization and feedback. This results in teachers spending more time giving feedback on high level concepts, and possibly even improving grading consistency and fairness” (Lee). Caren explains that by giving chatbots the easy repetitive work, the teachers and professors can focus more energy on topics that chatbots are not equipped to deal with. This not only makes it easier for the teacher, but also for the students because the teacher is able to give more targeted, personalized feedback to the students.

AI chatbots can also use past responses from users to create content that is based on past conversations. Melo says, “one of the key benefits of incorporating AI into the classroom is the ability to provide students with a more personalized learning experience. AI algorithms can analyze student data and adapt to their learning styles, providing feedback and recommendations that are tailored to their individual needs and abilities.” This is important because chatbots can provide specific feedback and content that will be useful for every individual. This would be good for students who learn at different speeds. Each student would then be able to go at their own pace, making the learning process effective. Teachers may be able to provide specific feedback for students with time, but eventually the teachers over students change and new teachers are introduced for different grades and courses. With AI chatbots, the student will be remembered forever, and the AI will know exactly how to help the student. The AI will also not be going away as with some teachers making the chatbot a powerful source to help the student throughout their whole education. AI chatbots can accomplish this task because of something called conversational memory: “The memory allows a Large Language Model (LLM) to remember previous interactions with the user” (Conversational Memory). A human’s ability is unmatched to the ability of AI chatbots when it comes to feedback because chatbots can remember more and can save information forever making it especially useful for students.

AI chatbots are a tool that can advance society rapidly. More and more businesses are using chatbots to do certain repetitive tasks instead of human workers. This means that some jobs will not be available anymore and skills for such should not be taught in schools. Schools will have to start to teach more about chatbots and how to work with them in jobs. This makes it necessary for schools to allow AI chatbot use. While some people argue that chatbots should be banned from schools, it would not make a difference because students will still have access from home. It is only reasonable for schools to teach students how to use chatbots responsibly, which many people believe can be done. AI chatbots can help students learn at a faster pace than ever before because of the accessibility of chatbots: Chatbots are free and can be used 24/7. Chatbots also provide students with answers to most of their questions in a few seconds. Students will not have to spend as much time searching online and in libraries and can instead focus on learning the content. As chatbots are being used, students will be able to get more helpful feedback as time goes on due to chatbots’ conversational memory. AI chatbots are an educational tool that should be embraced. Now that you know more about the benefits of chatbots for students, you can determine whether or not society is ready to embrace this new tool.

Works Cited

Cerullo, Megan. “These Jobs Are Most Likely to Be Replaced by Chatbots like Chatgpt.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 1 Feb. 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-chatbot-jobs-most-likely-to-be-replaced/.

Children’s Internet Access at Home, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cch/home-internet-access#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20some%2095%20percent,American%20Community%20Survey%20(ACS).&text=Specifically%2C%2088%20percent%20had%20access,smartphone%20for%20home%20internet%20access.

“Conversational Memory for LLMS with Langchain.” Pinecone, https://www.pinecone.io/learn/langchain-conversational-memory/.

Dodd, Charity. “Promoting Academic Integrity in the Age of AI: Strategies for Educators.” Learning Innovation Catalyst Blog, Learning Innovation Catalyst, 16 Feb. 2023, https://blog.linclearning.com/promoting-academic-integrity-in-the-age-of-ai-strategies-for-educators.

Durach, Dmytro, and Anastasiia Diachenko. “The Future of Chatbots: 10 Trends, Latest Stats & Market Size.” Onix Systems, Onix, 6 Apr. 2023, https://onix-systems.com/blog/6-chatbot-trends-that-are-bringing-the-future-closer.

“History of the Atom.” CK-12, https://www.ck12.org/book/ck-12-physical-science-for-middle-school/section/5.2/.

“Is Using AI Content Plagiarism?” Quetext, 14 Mar. 2023, https://www.quetext.com/blog/is-using-ai-content-plagiarism#:~:text=Technically%2C%20AI%2Dgenerated%20content%20is,presenting%20them%20as%20one’s%20own.

Lee, Christine. “What Is the Potential of Ai Writing? Is Cheating Its Greatest Purpose?” Turnitin, 31 Mar. 2023, https://www.turnitin.com/blog/what-is-the-potential-of-ai-writing-is-cheating-its-greatest-purpose#:~:text=Similar%20to%20contract%20cheating%2C%20using,t%20the%20student’s%20original%20work.

Melo, Nouridin. “Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into the Classroom: An Examination of Benefits, Challenges, and Best Practices.” ELearning Industry, 14 Feb. 2023, https://elearningindustry.com/incorporating-artificial-intelligence-into-classroom-examination-benefits-challenges-and-best-practices#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20key%20benefits,their%20individual%20needs%20and%20abilities.

Ptacek, Thomas H. “I’m Sorry, I Simply Cannot Be Cynical about a Technology That Can Accomplish This. Pic.twitter.com/yjly72ez0m.” Twitter, Twitter, 2 Dec. 2022, https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/1598513757805858820.

Shonubi, Olufemi. “Council Post: AI in the Classroom: Pros, Cons and the Role of Edtech Companies.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 22 Feb. 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2023/02/21/ai-in-the-classroom-pros-cons-and-the-role-of-edtech-companies/?sh=432608b3feb4.

Walker, Tim. “Cellphone Bans in School Are Back. How Far Will They Go?” NEA, https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/cellphone-bans-school-are-back-how-far-will-they-go#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20National%20Center,restrictions%20on%20cellphones%20than%20others.

Waterman, Chris. “Artificial Intelligence Changes Who Wins the Education Game.” Education Journal, no. 509, Jan. 2023, p. 31. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=161369232&site=ehost-live.