69ý

Artificial Intelligence Explainer

What Is ChatGPT and How Is It Used in Education?

By Mark Lieberman — January 04, 2023 2 min read
Conceptual Illustration of artificial intelligence superimposed over paper documents.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

During the chaotic summer of 2020, filled with pandemic panic and political protests, the emergence of a sophisticated new artificial intelligence tool that could credibly tweet, type, and code on its own was far from most educators’ minds.

Fast-forward two and a half years, and , a publicly available tool built on the advancements of that 2020 product, is rapidly approaching household name status. The free app that generates a fairly convincing approximation of text written by humans is infiltrating many corners of society, from and to .

It’s also hit the K-12 world. The New York City school system, the nation’s largest, moved this week to prohibit students and teachers from accessing the site on school computers. Some educators are fretting about the effect the app will have on their students’ motivation to learn, while others are already pondering ways to apply it to instruction.

A headline last month in The Atlantic declared that ChatGPT represents A teacher, writing for Education Week, counters that ChatGPT could become as ubiquitous as Wikipedia and calculators—though the teacher who wrote it acknowledges that the tool is “threatening to send my colleagues into early retirement.” This summer, when ChatGPT was in an earlier phase, Education Week asked teachers to weigh in on the technology—and had the AI write a short analysis of Romeo and Juliet.

If the collection of letters in ChatGPT still makes your head spin, here’s how you can get up to speed on this emerging technology and what it might mean.

What does the GPT in ChatGPT stand for?

Generative Pre-trained Transformer.

How does it work?

The chat app, released widely for free in late November 2022, is based on the underlying GPT technology, which comprehensively scanned the internet during the summer of 2020 and developed the ability to write seemingly anything—tweets, poems, essays, and even computer programs—all with a simple prompt.

Is this thing infallible?

Hardly. It can’t generate content based on things that have happened after its most recent scan of the internet in 2021, so some of the references it generates are out of date. Sometimes it gets or words wrong. And programmers have tried their hardest to restrict the tool from answering “inappropriate requests.”

Who’s behind this technology?

, a San Francisco-based research laboratory that contains a for-profit company and its nonprofit parent. Among its founders and biggest ongoing donors are controversial figures like Twitter CEO Elon Musk and Silicon Valley megadonor Peter Thiel, along with technology companies like Microsoft. Previous well-known products from OpenAI include , which creates images from textual descriptions.

Why are educators getting interested?

Some users have already tested the app’s ability to generate convincing versions of and even . Others believe students may benefit from understanding the ins and outs of how the technology works, and might use it as a tool to explore the possibilities and limits of online sources of information.

Is ChatGPT done evolving?

Not by a long shot. Version 4 of GPT is tentatively slated to debut sometime this year, though OpenAI hasn’t announced an official date. Some experts project the more-evolved version, with more than five times the parameters of Version 3, could be far more accurate and useful than the currently available model.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the January 18, 2023 edition of Education Week as What Is ChatGPT and How Is It Used in Education?

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in 69ý
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by 
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

Artificial Intelligence Opinion What to Know About AI Misinformation: A Primer for Teachers (Downloadable)
It’s not difficult to educate students to be savvy about artificial intelligence. Two researchers offer simple steps.
Sam Wineburg & Nadav Ziv
1 min read
Modern collage with halftone hands, eyes and search box. Person looking for information in the search bar. Concept of searching, looking, finding opportunities and knowledge in internet. SEO concept
Alona Horkova/iStock + Education Week
Artificial Intelligence Q&A What Happens When an AI Assistant Helps the Tutor, Instead of the Student
A randomized controlled trial from Stanford University examines the efficacy of an AI-powered tutoring assistant.
4 min read
Illustration of artificial intelligence bot in a computer screen teaching math.
iStock/Getty
Artificial Intelligence From Our Research Center 'We're at a Disadvantage,' and Other Teacher Sentiments on AI
Teachers say they have other, more pressing priorities.
3 min read
3D illustration of AI button of keyboard of a modern computer. Light blue button. 3D rendering on blue background. Training.
Bo Feng/iStock + Education Week
Artificial Intelligence Opinion What Makes 69ý (and the Rest of Us) Fall for AI Misinformation?
Researchers Sam Wineburg and Nadav Ziv explain how to turn your students into savvy online fact-checkers.
Sam Wineburg & Nadav Ziv
4 min read
Trendy pop art collage search concept. Halftone laptop computer with search bar and cut out hands pointing on it.
Cristina Gaidau/iStock