According to social media, a New-Year concern for teachers and lecturers across the country is the recently released “ChatGPT”: an AI-based software which produces essay-like responses to complex questions, in eerily human-like written English. Some teachers and lecturers are concerned that this will lead to an “epidemic of plagiarism”, with students over-relying on it for their schoolwork.
My cousin introduced me to this AI bot at a family Christmas party, and initially, I was astounded like everyone else on social media. I couldn’t wait to ask it about all the juicy issues that interested me (rather like we ask Siri to tell stupid jokes) and to copy and paste in last term’s essay questions to see how it responded.
Then, after digging deeper, I came to my senses. I hope that our fantastic Wymondham teachers are not stressing over this too much, because from what I’ve seen, it is hardly as ground-breaking as the media claims. It is prone to incorrect information: it told me that Roald Dahl wrote a short story called “The Switch” (he didn’t) and that J.K. Rowling was a former lawyer (she’s not). Its generation of computer code, while impressive, is not failsafe and does have bugs. It presents sweeping ‘factual’ statements that are actually up for debate and lacks the depth in opinion and evaluation that make essays successful. I asked it an A-Level English question on “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (one of the Wymondham set texts), and I know that its answer would have scored very badly. Its sister website “GPTZero”, created by a hero Princeton student, can analyse a text and inform you whether it was human or computer-generated, allowing teachers to breathe a sigh of relief.
Out of interest, I asked ChatGPT to write a “700-word lighthearted newspaper column” (which is my Wymondham Magazine brief). It replied with an article entitled “Planning Fun Summer Vacation”, which began like this:
“As I sit here at my desk, staring out the window at the bleak, wintry landscape, I can't help but feel a sense of longing for the warmer months. Don't get me wrong, I love the holiday season as much as the next person. But let's face it, there's only so much eggnog and Christmas music a person can take before they start to go stir crazy. But fear not, dear reader!”
Somehow, I doubt this app will put me out of a job just yet.
Conversely, the New Year saw the release of many positive things, most notably, the third season of Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley (free to watch on iPlayer). I do not deny the importance of self-care at this time of year. Leaving the Christmas holidays behind can verge on the depressing, and at the time of publication, Valentine’s Day approaches, either a celebratory or insufferable time of year depending on your views. So, self-care is more paramount than ever. I recently discovered Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, famous for its galloping historical inaccuracies (and there are plenty) but for still being a fun thriller. On the opposite end of the sophistication scale are the works of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who recently delivered a BBC Reith Lecture on Freedom of Speech. Her fiction provides an extra cultural enrichment somewhat lacking in The Da Vinci Code, so either may appeal to you based on your tastes.
When pitching this article to my sister, I asked her, “how else do we make the early months more bearable?” She laughed and said, “eat chocolate.” Enough said. And, for context, my sister is sugar-free. We are in the 21st Century, in which absolutely nobody is exempt: sugar-free, vegan, gluten-free, you name it, there is a bar out there which caters to your needs. My sister’s favourite is Montezuma’s “100%” flavour (revolting for me but delicious for her). It is also suitable for vegans, which is handy for people like me who know sugar-free people and vegans and occasionally get the two confused.
These elements will hopefully help us all enjoy 2023, regardless of its various challenges. And as a final note – I promise that it is me writing this, not the AI author of the journalism masterpiece “Planning Fun Summer Vacation”.
