> Does using a calculator make you a cheater at math?
Yes, yes it does is you're testing basic arithmetic.
The difference between a calculator and ChatGPT is the scope of problems it solves for you.
If you could read your math problem aloud to your calculator and it could solve it showing each step along the way people would clearly see it as cheating. It can't it can only do simple arithmetic, so you still need to translate the requirements to to understanding, determine an algorithm and then perform it with the calc doing the lowest level operations.
ChatGPT does the equivalent of this (ironically for non-math only). There is no "higher level" work for a person to do. It does it all. It's only limitation right now is that it's still under development.
ChatGPT can't do math, but let's say it fixes it's math bug soon. You can't come up with a type of high school or undergrad math problem it can't do. I can generate python code, it will be able to generate a proof.
And math is the hard one. Something like "write a few paragraphs discussing the initiating factors for World War I will be trivial.
If someone is going to claim ChatGPT (v2 or v3) doesn't completely upend education, then give an example of a type of question that it will be inherently unable to solve for you that people will still need to do.
> If you could read your math problem aloud to your calculator and it could solve it showing each step along the way people would clearly see it as cheating.
> If someone is going to claim ChatGPT (v2 or v3) doesn't completely upend education, then give an example of a type of question that it will be inherently unable to solve for you that people will still need to do.
ChatGPT is fairly superficial. The challenge will be to transition education from superficial regurgiation to deeper understanding.
Or to put it simply, writting an essay/code/etc isn't good enough, you know need to do it better than ChatGPT.
Can you gain deeper understanding without first gaining superficial understanding, though? And if not and our current method of imparting superficial knowledge breaks down, wouldn't there be a pipeline problem because much fewer students would get to the point where you can start teaching them deep understanding?
(Imagine a scenario in which no assessment is possible in any mathematics course below the level of differential geometry. Would "we just have to switch to teaching students advanced math instead" be a solution?)
Something along the lines of this is already a problem at US universities, as students chegg, stackexchange and collaborate their way through up-to-junior courses and then are so underprepared in senior-level ones that really 80% of a given class ought to be failed if this were politically feasible. At least though the current situation is more due to a lack of will than a lack of way to stop the cheating, so students are under some pressure to not make it too egriegious.
> an example of a type of question that it will be inherently unable to solve for you that people will still need to do.
Something like "tell me about your day so far" or "describe some important experiences in your life." Obviously, you can use ChatGPT to answer those questions, but they won't be true answers, since ChatGPT doesn't know you.
Of course, there is the issue of verifying those answers — probably the teacher won't be calling the student's parents to make sure it's accurate (:
As objective knowledge gets increasingly captured by external systems (search, maps, image generators, etc), subjective knowledge and personal experience remain out of its reach. I wonder if this could push us in a direction of valuing our personal life experiences more highly, as the other stuff becomes increasingly commoditized?
Yes, yes it does is you're testing basic arithmetic.
The difference between a calculator and ChatGPT is the scope of problems it solves for you.
If you could read your math problem aloud to your calculator and it could solve it showing each step along the way people would clearly see it as cheating. It can't it can only do simple arithmetic, so you still need to translate the requirements to to understanding, determine an algorithm and then perform it with the calc doing the lowest level operations.
ChatGPT does the equivalent of this (ironically for non-math only). There is no "higher level" work for a person to do. It does it all. It's only limitation right now is that it's still under development.
ChatGPT can't do math, but let's say it fixes it's math bug soon. You can't come up with a type of high school or undergrad math problem it can't do. I can generate python code, it will be able to generate a proof.
And math is the hard one. Something like "write a few paragraphs discussing the initiating factors for World War I will be trivial.
If someone is going to claim ChatGPT (v2 or v3) doesn't completely upend education, then give an example of a type of question that it will be inherently unable to solve for you that people will still need to do.