Artificial intelligences like ChatGPT can change education: concerns about plagiarism and students becoming reliant on AI are common but there are opportunities too

Matt Glanville, head of assessment principles and practice at International Baccalaureate, sees the need to prepare students to use the technology ethically and effectively

Ryan Yue, director of educational technology at American School Hong Kong (ASHK), also embraces AI and says students are getting familiar with it more quickly than teachers are

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OpenAI’s ChatGPT is just the first of what is likely to be a wave of AI tools that students – and schools – need to come to terms with. Photo: DPA

Published: 11:00am, 2 Jun 2023

The hype behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT is far from overstated. It has the potential to completely transform the world of education – particularly in fields that involve writing and conducting large amounts of research. But concerns around plagiarism and students becoming too reliant on AI tools – therefore hindering their ability to think for themselves – have alarmed teachers, parents and nearly everyone working in the education space.

Schools that refuse to adapt and consider these tools will fall behind and their students could be tempted to use software like ChatGPT anyway, perhaps in nefarious or fraudulent ways.

IB and AI

With all this in mind, the International Baccalaureate (IB) – considered by many to be the world’s most forward-thinking secondary school curriculum provider – believes that students can use AI to bolster their education and become better learners, thinkers and workers.

“The IB believes that this AI technology will become part of our everyday lives – like spell checkers, translation software and calculators,” says Matt Glanville, head of assessment principles and practice at the IB. “We therefore need to adapt and transform our educational programmes and assessment practices so that students can use these new AI tools ethically and effectively. The IB is not going to ban the use of such software but will work with schools to help them support their students on how to use these tools ethically, in line with our principles of academic integrity.”

AI tools will likely be a boon in research and other time-consuming tasks but hazards remain and need to be anticipated. Photo: Getty Images

The IB’s official policy as of now is that students are allowed to quote from content created by ChatGPT in their essays and other graded assessments, but similar to quotes or materials adapted from outside sources, it must be credited in the body of text and appropriately referenced in the bibliography.