Gen Z seems to be demonstrating increased inclination towards the deployment of ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot for scholastic tasks, as per a fresh study by the Pew Research Center. However, there is uncertainty as to whether these users are fully cognizant of the underlying drawbacks of this technology.
Pew carried out a follow-up poll on ChatGPT adoption amongst youngsters, inquiring 1,400 American teens aged 13-17 about their utilization of ChatGPT for school assignments. A significant rise in usage to 26% was recorded compared to the figures from two years ago.
About 54% of respondents expressed agreement with the usage of ChatGPT for surfacing novel subject matters, while 29% considered it reasonable for solving mathematical problems. Surprisingly, 18% also found it acceptable for essay writing tasks.
Such observations can potentially be alarming considering the limitations of ChatGPT. The chatbot is not the most reliable for mathematical operations, nor an infallible source of information. A recent examination demonstrated the default AI model of ChatGPT, GPT-4o, to be barely more competent than random human guesses when subjected to a high-level history examination.
The same study also highlighted the chatbot’s weak performance in areas of relevance to the core demographic of users. The survey revealed higher usage rate for academic tasks amongst Black and Hispanic teens when compared with their white counterparts.
The effectiveness of ChatGPT as a learning tool is a debatable subject. High school learners from Turkey exhibited poorer performance in math tests when provided access to ChatGPT, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania. In contrast, German students found research easier with ChatGPT but demonstrated lesser skill in material synthesis.
In concerning revelations from a separate Pew survey, 25% of public K-12 educators opined that AI tools like ChatGPT inflict more harm than benefit in education. Furthermore, a mere 18% teachers employ AI in their classrooms as observed in a survey conducted by the Rand Corporation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education.
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