Is ChatGPT or AI good for college education or bad

ChatGPT (AI) is NOT Good for College Education

ChatGPT (AI) may be good for getting information quick—but “it does not teach critical thinking skills and problem-solving skills,” which a college student needs to have in order to prepare for the real world—as Jenna Lyle of the New York City Department of Education pointed out (Heaven). The fact is many are lauding AI and ChatGPT in particular as being tools that will enhance college education. The reality is that it is just a convenience tool that deprives one of actually conducting real research and figuring things out for oneself.

Villasenor does not agree: he says that “to remain competitive throughout their careers, students need to learn how to prompt an AI writing tool to elicit worthwhile output and know how to evaluate its quality, accuracy and originality.” But is that true? Why is this going to be a skilled required of them in the real world? ChatGPT is little more than a glorified Google search engine: you can ask it a question and it will give you a standard consensus-driven response. What it will not do is challenge you to think outside the box, question narratives, innovate, or criticize a text. It is simply a way to get learners to accept a standardized response as though it were dogma. ChatGPT will make students lazier—not smarter or give them a greater competitive edge in the marketplace. Villasenor thinks that ChatGPT is the future—but anyone who has used it since it was released has seen the quality of responses deteriorate over time; the novelty has worn off quite a bit, and now everyone faddish company is promoting its own version of AI tech in order to stay relevant. But what do they really offer that Google does not already do? The AI-generated responses are generic and formulaic. The syntax is almost always the same. There is no life or soul in the text. There is no depth to the reasoning or the responses. Everything it spits out is superficial as though it came straight from Wikipedia (at best). This is supposed to be something that is good for college students? That gives them an edge? That will be counted as a 21st century skill by employers? More likely this type of thinking is what a shill for AI companies would indulge in. It comes across as something written by a clickbait artist.

College students need 21st century skills—but inputting prompts in an AI generator is certainly not one of them. Real 21st century skills consist of critical thinking and problem-solving as Lyle pointed out (Heaven). They consist of asking tough questions, gathering data, analyzing the evidence to see whether it is relevant to the problem, and then making decisions based on that process. It is about finding ways to solve problems—not asking software to solve it for you. If that is a 21st century skill, there will be a lot of people without jobs in the 21st century, because it does not require many minds to input prompts on a tool like ChatGPT. If one is looking for generic solutions to real issues, a simple code can be written that will have a computer doing it all.

Real 21st century skills are obtained by way of hard work and initiative, by thinking through problems, trying out solutions, and refining one’s work. It is about practicing revision, and generating ideas on one’s own—not at the mercy of some over-hyped software that Sam Altman wants to sell. The ability to critically assess a situation, to problem-solve, to innovate and adapt—all of this is born out of experience, perseverance, and the courage to fail and to learn from those failures. These are skills honed by grappling with real-world challenges, by wrestling with complexity, by asking questions and digging deeper each step of the way, and by taking calculated risks when necessary. It requires one to step outside of the comfort zones, to navigate uncertainty, to brave the wild world of uncertainty, and to immerse oneself in the messy, non-linear process of learning (where information is not presented one ready-made on a silver platter in a matter of seconds). It is precisely this process that sharpens the mind and will that software—any software, for all its apparent convenience and efficiency—simply cannot replicate. If punching in inputs and copying/pasting outputs is a 21st century skill, then 21st century employers might as well simply invest in software. The problem is they cannot. Software still needs engineers—and engineers need to have sharp minds and real understanding. Engineers who have based their education on interactions with ChatGPT will be of no use to anyone other than Sam Altman, whose bank account will benefit.