For me, it started one Friday in July (2023) when I joined a Teams meeting with three OU colleagues who organised the WELS PGR Blog. We got talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI). One of the three colleagues thought it was ‘great’ and told us that she uses AI all the time and has been reading articles to get more information. A second colleague, an OU AL, said that she finds many of her students are using ChatGPT in their assignments and that she is beginning to get a sense of what AI-generated writing sounds like; it is often a little bit too perfect, in her view. The third colleague contrasted this experience to her own as she finds that there are some students who have never heard of ChaptGPT or AI.
At this point, I felt that I had to confess that while I had heard a lot in the media about the risks of AI and rather less about its benefits, I had never actually engaged with it. The colleague who likes AI gave me the link for ChatGPT.
Once the Teams meeting was over, I signed up for ChatGPT. There, I was faced with the front page giving some examples of possible enquiries ranging from creative ideas for a birthday party to explaining quantum computing. The same screen also outlines the capabilities of Chat. GPT. It is ‘trained’ to “decline inappropriate requests”. It then admits that its limitations include ‘occasionally’ generating “incorrect information”, “harmful instructions or biased content”.
It then invites you to “Send a message”.
I do not know if it was these limitations that made me stare blankly at the send-a-message request. Wouldn’t it be awful if my first message was deemed inappropriate? Would I know if I was sent harmful instructions or incorrect or biased information?
As the English Men’s Cricket team was engaged in a test match against Australia, I thought I would start by asking about the names of fielding positions which, beyond wicketkeeper and slips, I have a very tenuous grip on. Immediately, ChatGPT presented me with a list of these positions. Very impressive.
Emboldened, it occurred to me that I had had a supervision session with one of my EdD students. I had been trying to suggest that what she had been talking about in her most recent piece of writing could be related to Foucualt’s ideas about micropower and the role of ‘examination’ in disciplining populations. So, I asked about this. ChatGPT responded, saying these sorts of ideas were implicit in much of Foucault’s work. So, I asked for some examples. One of these was Discipline and Punish (Foucault, 199). I have a copy of this, so I found an example of where Foucault talks about how examinations are used. ChapGPT thought I was quite right!
Coincidentally, shortly afterwards, I read an article by Philip Ball, “Can IT think?” (Ball, 2023), which not only outlines how AI uses algorithms to scan “vast banks of online data” but also discusses the arguments for and against a possible ‘robot apocalypse’ and the dangers of AI being used to increase cybercrime and terrorism. Ball concludes by siding with experts who suggest that AI should be treated in the same way as new drugs and licensed for public use only after careful testing. Ball concludes:
“ … in seeking solutions, we are to some extent flying blind because we do not know what kinds of minds these machines have- and because, in the absence of that knowledge, our impulse is to presume that they are minds like ours. They are not. It is time to take machine psychology seriously.” (Ball, 2023, p. 33).
This made me sit up and take notice. I had quite enjoyed what seemed like a pleasant chat with Chat GPT about Foucault and was thinking that this was not that different from interrogating other sources of information. In a way, I had moved through a cycle starting with ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ (I don’t know) to ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ (It’s just a quick way to access information.) to return to What’s all the fuss about? (Does anybody know?)
Jonathan Hughes
Image: Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/what-is-this-is-all-real-text-with-yellow-background-3280211/
Jonathan is a member of the PGR Blogger editorial team. Lecturer (access and curriculum) at the Open University’s Centre for Inclusion and Collaborative Partnerships, where I am also the Academic Conduct Officer and Assessment Lead. I am the Academic Lead for the Open University Badging Project which is developing the first university badged open courses outside the USA. I have been working as skills lead, author and critical reader on Open University Health and Social Care modules.
My research interests include widening participation and learning in later life, as well as later life sexuality. I am the chair of the Association of Education and Ageing.
In June 2014, I became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.