If it wasn’t already, the arrival this week of the latest version of ChatGPT, GPT-4, means the genie is well and truly out of the bottle when it comes to artificial intelligence - there is no going back to the way things used to be.
The upcoming language model from OpenAI is a major upgrade from GPT-3. Rather than operating only with text, this latest version will operate in speech and images, too, working across all languages.
It’s clear that we, as a society, are going through a shared human experience even more monumental than the arrival of search engines or the smartphone.
Yet, despite how ubiquitous they are today, we must remember that schools were slow to adopt both, and in many cases even resisted their arrival. In 1988, some teachers protested against the use of the calculator. Generative AI may be new, but this pattern of creative destruction isn’t; human beings have been here many times before.
While the International Baccalaureate has taken a progressive approach and allowed the credited use of ChatGPT in essays, eight of the UK’s 24 elite Russell Group universities - including Cambridge - have already banned it.
However, investing time and energy into stopping AI does a disservice to our young people. We must use that time and energy to harness it. Rather than seeing it as a threat, we must see it as an opportunity. We must teach pupils how to make the most of ChatGPT and other AI tools to enhance their learning and develop the research skills that will prepare them for the jobs of the future.
Our school’s staff and pupils very much enjoyed meeting Professor Louise Hayward, who is carrying out a review of assessments and qualifications in Scotland.
Judging by the interim report published on 3 March, education will be more closely linked with the reality of the world of work. We hope this will finally spark the seismic change that most teachers have been crying out for: a move away from knowledge retention and recital towards more open book, real-world thinking. The current model is prehistoric. Finally, teachers may be able to assess less and teach more.
ChatGPT alone is accessed 13 million times a day, according to figures in January. And that’s just one AI tool in its infancy. AI will only become more powerful, so let’s learn to use it - and while we’re teaching our pupils how to use it, teachers can reduce workload, too. For now, until AI and other digital developments are factored into the education system as a whole there will be friction, only to children’s and teachers’ detriment.
When Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) examiners, teachers - and parents - shift their mindset away from preparing pupils for an exam, towards preparing pupils for the jobs of tomorrow, AI suddenly feels less of a threat.
Rather than worries such as “the death of coursework”, we should explore how, with the help of AI, homework and coursework can be even more effective as preparation for valuable class time, rather than the outcome from it.
We see the pace of change and real-world impact in our Innovation School at Kelvinside Academy. Last year, a pupil developing a design solution in robotics needed to not only design the shape and form of the robot, but they also needed to learn the code to generate the movement and actions desired. Now ChatGPT can produce the coding, and they were able to bring their own design to life.
Design solutions, which previously required programmers to create a solution, can now be tackled by those with limited experience, taking far less time.
Our naturally curious and playful young people are the early adopters. They should be rewarded for that curiosity and their agility in adopting new platforms, rather than grading them in SQA exams on their memory and the skills of yesteryear. That’s why we’ve made pupils part of our AI strategy group, where we can explore how to use AI in the most effective way possible.
We should be celebrating the speed at which pupils adopt new technologies, and their fascination with them. If teachers instead spend much of their time working with pupils to replicate current SQA exam conditions, it will only be at the expense of a creative and deeper learning experience.
The future jobs market will be driven by a generative AI. Our students need to be able to take driving lessons with the machines of the future.
Dan Wyatt is rector (headteacher) at Kelvinside Academy, an independent school in Glasgow
