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Among concerns surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) taking jobs, the world’s teachers can breathe a sigh of relief after research has shown that AI is not yet ready to take the reins.
Researchers from Charles Darwin University (CDU) studied the capabilities of AI chatbots, testing whether or not they could assist students in critically understanding the answers to two financial accounting course unit assessments.
The assessment, which was led by CDU Professor of Accounting Indra Abeysekera, put OpenAI’s free ChatGPT and the paid ChatGPT-4 to the test, feeding the bots two lots of 10 questions.
ChatGPT answered eight out of 10 in the introductory test and five out of 10 in the advanced test, while ChatGPT-4 answered nine out of 10 in the introductory test and seven out of 10 in the advanced test.
While this proves that the chatbots are able to answer difficult questions, the two struggled to explain processes and assist learners in developing their own understanding.
“The solutions provided by ChatGPT showed that it is a solution provider rather than a teacher or instructor,” Professor Abeysekera said.
“ChatGPT can be constructive to a competent learner who has reached the competency level to further develop critical understanding. As research has indicated, high achievers can have a fear of numbers, and they can benefit by using ChatGPT solutions as validation checks for their learning.
“ChatGPT does not provide scaffolding for novice learners to take over their learning and develop individual competencies to be less or not reliant on it. It can be destructive to an incompetent learner and can serve as a platform to simply find the solution or as a channel to ease their fear of numbers.
“Furthermore, the findings showed that ChatGPT is not a foolproof solution provider, especially when questions have discipline-specific underlying assumptions and increased technical and task complexity.”
Professor Abeysekera added that ChatGPT is still at a stage where it can not develop critical opinion, understanding or unique and original information, but it processes and shares data in a very methodical way.
“ChatGPT can process unstructured data, convert it into information, and share it as knowledge,” Professor Abeysekera said.
“It can meet some criteria that meet originality, such as synthesising information differently and providing a new interpretation using known information.
“However, there are originality tasks that ChatGPT is incapable of meeting, at least for now. These include testing someone else’s idea in a different context or developing a research tool. Hence, academic focus on learning and assessment should shift toward original knowledge.”
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