The Amsterdammer

Culture reporter Nina Cerasuolo discusses how ChatGPT can help students study without committing fraud, despite the concerns of educational institutions towards its use.

Until the beginning of the last academic year, the prospects and risks of implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education were confined to professional conventions, sci-fi books and the dystopian rants of everyone’s conspiracist uncle. 

However, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) in November 2022, panic ensued. On the one hand, people wanted to try out ChatGPT to see if AI could really solve mathematical problems, compare philosophers, creatively re-write a horror short story in Dickens’ style. 

On the other hand, institutions immediately became alarmed. For example, the University of Amsterdam changed exam format and location and put out an official statement describing the use of ChatGPT in official submissions as a violation of the institution’s fraud and plagiarism regulations. Debate raged throughout the academic year. Some highlighted the endless list of possibilities deriving from such a quick, inexpensive and insightful algorithm. Others worried about the risks of this technology in terms of privacy, data management and copyright, as well as its impact on creativity and on people’s ability to conduct independent intellectual work.

As the discussion progressed, it became deeper and deeper, more and more nuanced. However, people – especially students – did not stop using ChatGPT. So, how can we understand the algorithm behind ChatGPT, in very – very – simple terms? And most importantly, how can we efficiently use ChatGPT to study, without risking plagiarism or ending up dependent on AI for our intellectual work?

How ChatGPT works – for deeply technology un-savvy people (like myself).

On the surface, using ChatGPT is easy: you put in a question or a command and the algorithm feeds you an answer back. This process transpires in the span of a few seconds, unless you are asking for information that was not available when the algorithm was trained (2021) or that is not accessible because of copyright and paywells (e.g. a specific newspaper article). ChatGPT can also adjust its answers, taking into account previous prompts and responses, if you follow up your input and specify it.

How does it do this? ChatGPT is powered by a Large Language Model (LLM), an algorithm capable of recording and understanding how words are used to provide information – that is, with what frequency and in what context words are combined with one another. Hence, LLMs do not work with information directly, but rather with language.

What does this mean? It means that, based on your prompt, ChatGPT does not explore a database of facts, but a database of logically connected sentences. 

And so what? And so your prompt has a tremendous impact on the output you will get, because ChatGPT uses your words to look for sentences and identify associations and context, and then come back to you with an answer.

Five ways to integrate ChatGPT into your study routine.

1. Quickly summarize articles you have already read, for revision. Indeed, the speed at which ChatGPT can summarize content is like nothing you will ever achieve on your own. However, the algorithm has no taste for nuance and will turn a sample of one hundred 10-year-olds into a sample of ten centenarians, so it is important that you only use ChatGPT to summarize content when you think you can spot mistakes. Still, you can feed complete references to the algorithm, specifying in the prompt the extent to which you would like the summary to go in depth. You can do this by specifying word count, but also by underlining that you want some sections to be paid more attention to. And do not be shy: do you remember numbered lists more easily? Have trouble following the flow of an extensive literature review, if it is not in chronological order? Adapt the summary to your memorization preferences! For example: “Summarize *reference*. Limit the summary to 500 words, including main findings and methodological limitations. Provide the findings as a numbered list, and re-organize the literature review in chronological order of references.”

2. Roleplay with a free private tutor. Give the algorithm all the information you can gather on the type of examination (essay questions, multiple choice questions, etc.) and the content of the exam – this will also help you identify the most important topics! Then, ask ChatGPT to be your examiner, making up questions in the right format for you to practice on and correct your mistakes. For example: “I have a multiple-choice exam on *topic*. I have studied *topic* in *book\author*. *Expand on content for better response*. Make up multiple-choice questions for me to practice on, and correct me if I answer wrong.”

3. Practice a new language. Again, ask ChatGPT to be your tutor and, while you have a conversation on a chosen topic at a chosen level, ask the algorithm to correct you and give you suggestions as you progress. For example: “I am an A2 level student of Dutch. Be my Dutch tutor and start a conversation with me on a topic fit to my level (possibly about work, the workplace, or language useful when working). If I answer incorrectly, correct me. At any turn, provide me with substitutions to enrich my language skills and vocabulary.”

4. Enrich your writing. Of course, ChatGPT could write (almost) anything for you, but that would be plagiarism and, most importantly, you risk slowly losing your ability to write creatively and academically. Still, you can ask the algorithm for help with re-phrasing specific sentences, asking for context-appropriate (and/or more scholarly) synonyms and syntax, or reducing your own content into bullet points for you to expand on with more clarity. This is especially useful if you study in a language that is not your own! For example: “What’s a synonym for “cool” I can use in a research paper to describe trends in popularity in high school environments?.”

5. Deepen your knowledge of the study material. Ask ChatGPT to comment on one author’s work from the perspective of another author, ask for on-topic reading recommendations (but do not quote them without checking they exist!), and brainstorm interdisciplinary research ideas. It is an unbelievable tool, do not limit yourself to boring summaries! For example: “Comment on *author*’s concept of *x* from the perspective of *author two* in their work from *year*. Highlight both similarities and differences.”

Extra tip: get organized. Studying does not only mean writing and preparing essays; it also means learning when to do it. Asking ChatGPT to build a schedule for you will make you think about your tasks and the time you plan to dedicate to them (which is a good exercise to begin with!), and the algorithm will help you distribute the study load effectively, depending on your habits and time preferences.

And remember: ChatGPT is using your words, so the more specific the input, the better the output – and good luck studying!