“As an artificial intelligence language model, I don’t have a physical presence and therefore cannot ‘belong’ in any specific location, including South African schools,” said ChatGPT to our chagrin after we asked it if it “belonged” in the country’s schools, to be used by its learners.

OpenAI’s large language model chatbot became famous around the globe, seemingly in a blink of an eye, for answers like this. Answers that hint at a reflection of self-awareness. Something that we know is impossible.

“However,” it continued, “my abilities as a language model could potentially be useful in educational settings, including South African schools, where I could assist students with language learning, writing, and research tasks.”

Chatbot causes worldwide panic

We have in the past written about both the benefits and the dangers of using ChatGPT in academics. Like any tool at our disposal, it can be leveraged to make our lives easier, or used to cheat a system that has been in place since 605 BCE when hopeful candidates sat down to write the Imperial Examination in Sui China.

OpenAI’s chatbot is only limited by our imagination, and through the right prompting, and now with the use of upcoming plugins, it will only continue to surprise us and leave us aghast. You can use it to very quickly and easily compile citations for your university essay reference list. It can recommend authors and books for your research, down to very specific themes.

It can help you plan your studying, even making time for you to take breaks, and it can write incredibly convincing essays for you in a matter of minutes. So convincing that entire school districts, and even some countries, have called for the ban of the chatbot.

Apart from privacy fears, educational institutions are concerned that ChatGPT can and is being used to bypass the learning process entirely. According to an article from the MIT Technology Review, ChatGPT has suffered bans across schools in the English-speaking world.

These includes in schools belonging to districts in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Alabama and Virginia. In the UK, the Imperial College London, and even Cambridge University issued statements warnings students against using the chatbot to cheat.

“While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-­thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success,” Jenna Lyle, a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Education, told the Washington Post at the beginning of the year.

South Africa embraces the future of ChatGPT

But ChatGPT was still young then, and much of the initial panic has somewhat calmed. Now, we are seeing a rise in interest from educators to leverage the tool to better their craft, and teach their learners to do the same. Ethically, at least.

Part of this sentiment stems from a “If you can’t beat it, join it” mindset. With the enormous amounts of funds tech giants like Google and Microsoft are pouring into their own chatbots, it is difficult to not look at large language model chatbots and not think “this is the future.”

“We believe that educational policy experts should decide what works best for their districts and schools when it comes to the use of new technology,” Niko Felix, a spokesperson for OpenAI, told MIT.

“We are engaging with educators across the country to inform them of ChatGPT’s capabilities. This is an important conversation to have so that they are aware of the potential benefits and misuse of AI, and so they understand how they might apply it to their classrooms.”

Recently, the generative AI craze, fueled by ChatGPT, hit South Africa and conversations are arising on how, instead of fearing the technology, it should be embraced.

“We shouldn’t hide this technology from learners, we should expose them to this technology because ultimately, the future is about this,” Ahsan Mahboob, head of Sibanye-Stillwater DigiMine Laboratory told 702 in a radio interview.

“We should focus more on investing in how schools, teachers and learners can use ChatGPT productively and ethically to enhance their skills. As educators, it is our core responsibility to train the next generation and the future of our nation.”

According to Mahboob, the problem with ChatGPT in schools in South Africa isn’t so much that learners will use it to cheat, but rather that not enough learners in the country have access to it.

To use the chatbot one needs an internet connection and an email address. The digital divide is still relevant across Africa, and in the most rural areas of South Africa, there is little access to either, providing a major barrier to the distribution of ChatGPT.

“There is an uneven access to these technologies in South Africa. Rural areas have no internet so the focus should be – how we can use it to ensure everyone has equal access to it to enjoy the benefits of it,” Mahboob explained.

In Mahboob’s vision, collaboration between educators, parents, the government and policy makers should ensure that these AI innovations are used to upskill learners and educators.

The drafting of new curricula that include “AI literacy” should also be tabled, he said, in order to give children more opportunities in the future. Something that the government has been keen on through its many fourth industrial revolution (4IR) skills drives, which almost always include learnings on AI.

South Africa’s “alarming” school issues

But one has to question the practicality of investing in expensive networking and information technologies when there are schools in the country where learners have no food, still use dangerous pit latrines and increasingly show no interest in attending due to their dilapidated conditions.

Surely, that money would be better suited to fixing the now problems of the country’s basic education sector, one that the Centre for Development and Enterprises calls “alarming.”

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) found on Tuesday that eight out of 10 South African pupils in Grade 4 are unable to read for meaning. How are children in South Africa supposed to ask ChatGPT questions when they won’t even be able to comprehend the answers they receive?

Even worse, is that the study shows that reading comprehension is slowly decreasing, returning to levels last seen in 2011.

Mahboob is definitely correct in one thing, however. That ChatGPT and similar tools will be the future of education. Some of the largest educational technology in the world, like Chegg and Pearson, are rushing to launch chatbot like platforms for their customers, but it may already be too little too late.

[Image – Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash]