The government is “assessing the risks” that could be posed to the education system by the growing sophistication of large language models – as exemplified by ChatGPT.
Developed by Silicon Valley firm OpenAI, ChatGPT has attracted a great deal of attention in recent weeks as the program has been made openly available for public use as part of a testing and feedback-gathering process. Users have tasked have tasked the program with creating letters, poems, and stories – and been impressed with the results.
Some academics, meanwhile, have reported setting the same assignment to ChatGPT as they set to their students, and found that the AI-generated reports and essays they received were worthy of high marks – and indistinguishable from human-authored work.
Baroness Barran, minister for the school system, said that the Department for Education is reviewing the potential dangers posed by large language models – but also believes that such systems could offer benefits to schools and colleges.
