Editorial | Using AI in development

As this newspaper reported on Sunday, officials at Jamaica’s tertiary institutions, like their counterparts around the world, are grappling with how to respond to ChatGPT, the chatbot that produces artificial intelligence-generated, high-quality essays on demand that are almost impossible to distinguish from those produced by humans.

In many school districts in the United States the use of the programme is banned, while university administrators on both sides of the Atlantic, and elsewhere, have been reviewing how students are assessed to reduce the possible impact of cheating on their results.

In Jamaica, there is as yet no consensus on how to deal with the technology, except an acceptance that it cannot be ignored.

At the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech), the availability and use of ChatGPT, like other AI technologies, will, for the time being, be controlled on the campus networks while the university reviews its systems to ensure “our academic integrity and policies regarding examinations and plagiarism”, according UTech’s Acting President, Professor Colin Gyles.

The University of the West Indies (UWI), at least its Mona, Jamaica campus, has not yet settled on a position, although, as the campus’ registrar, Donovan Stanberry, acknowledged, its emergence is exercising the minds of administrators and professors.

REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT

Educators have good reasons to be concerned, but they, and policymakers in general, must not act in haste. In fact, the current attention on ChatGPT (chat generative pre-trained transformer) is an opportunity for Jamaica to consider how it may adopt, and adapt, the latest generations of AI technologies for use in the country’s development.

Artificial intelligence is at the cutting edge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which, a year or two ago, was incessantly part of the lexicon of Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Jamaica has to work hard to catch up and grasp these new technologies or be left behind, Mr Holness consistently warned.

Many of these technologies have industrial applications. But fundamentally, it is about the capacity of machines to take on and execute tasks not only with precision, but with human-like characteristics that make them exciting The best of them have the capacity to ‘learn’, thereby consistently improving their ability to perform their jobs and the possibility of opening new frontiers.

Recently, for instance, a big concern was over the AI application called Stable Diffusion. It collects, collates and analyses images from across the Internet, which it applies to help it fashion art in styles that mimic artists whose work it surveyed. A development of this type raises questions about the rights of the people whose creative efforts and economic well-being may be compromised, which is why there is discussion in the United States about the regulatory environment within which such a technology should exist.

ChatGPT, developed by a US company called OpenAI and launched last November, raises even more profound and complex questions.

Artificial intelligence systems that speedily perform complex computations are not particularly new. Neither are those that write poetry, prose or other narratives with seeming human sentiences. What makes ChatGPT different is the consistent sophistication and fluidity with which it engages the topics on which it is asked to espouse.

Moreover, it is easy to use. And it is still learning. So, the more it interfaces with its clients, its engagements will produce fewer errors and are likely to become deeper and more nuanced.

HARNESSING TECHNOLOGIES

Understandably, educators worry that students can use a program like ChatGPT to leapfrog academic effort and cheat their way to high grades and undeserved degrees and accolades. Those, indeed, are dangers. But they are only one side of the coin.

On the other is the possibility, too, of harnessing technologies like these for teaching and learning to enhance educational outcomes. That would be of value to Jamaica.

In any event, these technologies are not going away. Others of the kind, even improved, are on the near horizon. Banning them makes no sense.

The response by educators, therefore, must be in their approaches to pedagogy and assessment to preserve the integrity of education outcomes.

Indeed, as ChatGPT said when asked by this newspaper whether it should be banned by Jamaica’s education authorities: “[T]he decision to ban or restrict access to ChatGPT in educational settings should be based on a careful and informed consideration of the potential benefits and risks, and should take into account the views of students, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders.”

But any such consideration should not merely be about ChatGPT. Rather, Prime Minister Holness should establish a broad-based task force on artificial intelligence and its potential for driving Jamaica’s development in the short, medium and long term. Part of this effort should be an addendum to Orlando Patterson’s report on reforming Jamaica’s education system, including how AI might interface with advancing skills and vocational training.