AI Chatbots May Devitalize Ingenuity: Arrival of New Disruptors in Education

There is a lot of buzz around ChatGPT, a language model software capable of responding to queries with human-like intelligence. However, AI poses the threat of the diminishing use of human cognitive skills. The absence of ample thinking before writing and the sheer utilization of AI tools for generating reports and documents may make one devoid of skill and imagination to create new things. Spoon-feeding by artificially intelligent systems is enfeebling metacognition and promotes a lackadaisical attitude in students in the education process. Analyzing, report writing, etc. is likely to get reshaped with the evolving AI chatbots based on disruptive technology that redefines the ontology and epistemology of teaching, learning, examination, and research. There is a thin line between someone requiring support and someone becoming parasitic to the support. The likelihood of loss of ingenuity, and diminishing cognitive skills need to be investigated thoroughly at every activity level.

The growth of artificial intelligence and natural language processing necessitates accolades for the whole community of technology developers for their successful attempts to imitate human intelligence and behaviour. All endeavours to automate processes and activities through digital technologies are ushering into a world flooded with digital gadgets and application tools. Chatbots with AI in different domains including science is a leap forward that has various dimensions associated with it. There is a lot of buzz around ChatGPT which is a language model software with public accessibility that helps to find answers to the majority of questions with human-like intelligence as compared to answers available from various search engines. Human-like replies by this AI Chatbot are making it a popular tool for applications like language translation, generating text replies, language modelling, software writing, etc.

Undoubtedly, the inherent potential of the software presented as an AI Chatbot for prompt replies and detailed responses is empowering every user beyond individual’s capabilities and easing out activities. AI Chatbot is becoming a tool for generating text content, writing codes, making calculations, report generation, compiling information, etc., and can assist in building up further using human intelligence. Also, there will be repeatability of detailed responses for similar queries for all. Nevertheless, insufficiency of data, lack of data diversity and bias in data for training AI models, lack of understanding and interpretations, data security and regulation are a few concerns that pose limitations in AI processes. With the buzz around various AI Chatbots, it is becoming imperative to introspect their implications and act suitably so that they may not devitalize ingenuity.

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Ostensibly, there is no issue with machine assistance replacing human interventions, but there ought to be numerous implications spanning reliability, privacy, ethical, emotional and technical issues to which a lot of contrasting views are visible across the world. There is no debate on the advantages of AI tools because they lessen human interventions and also offer repeatability. They can remove inefficiencies in routine activities and complement human resource needs to a certain extent.

Cognitive functions like thinking, remembering and reasoning by AI tools and gadgets may lead to reduced utilization of such human abilities.

But the emulation of cognitive functions like thinking, remembering and reasoning by AI tools and gadgets may lead to reduced utilization of such human abilities. Introspection shows that the use of calculators has enfeebled calculation skills, and computer dictionary-assisted typing has weakened the language skills like spelling, sentence formation, picking correct words, memorization, etc. For example, today people do not remember many things as these can be stored and fetched from mobile phones at any time. The convergence of multiple features in smartphones has obliviated many things that were inevitably carried together to perform various actions effectively in the past.

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Nearly ubiquitous access to the internet permits a large population to harness the IT-based facilities and the most popular ones are the search engines. Amongst different ones, the number of searches on Google alone is stated to be around 8.5 billion per day as per Internet Live Stats 2022. These searches are only facilitating access to certain content, but the AI chatbots have gone beyond and responded to any query in natural language based on their inherent search abilities and training. The AI tools are trying to replicate thinking, reasoning, and reacting like that of the human mind with access to large data through the internet. In contrast, the human mind, which reacts only on the basis of its memory, experience, understanding and emotions, could be deficient to AI chatbots having worldwide internet data at their disposal for replying to queries. That is why the present-day generative artificial intelligence tools generate text output assimilating the digital content used for its training which may comprise text, images, audio, video, codes, simulation models, etc. Therefore, the quality of human conversation-like responses through artificial intelligence appears attractive. Nevertheless, it cannot decide the correctness of responses as these have solely relied upon the digital data availability which could be correct or incorrect, and thus a blessing or bane.

The declining ability to write and comprehend is discernible in the current generation. This decline could be due to overdependence on assisted writing tools that keep prompting sentence formation without understanding the intent and purpose behind it.

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Besides, the threat posed by AI is the diminishing use of human cognitive skills. For example, the discernible changes in numerical abilities are visible on account of the transition from the slide rule age to the calculator age to the present high-end computing age. All-time dependence on calculators to multiply, add, subtract and divide is lessening the use of the mind for performing these operations and is threatening respective cognitive skills. The declining ability to write and comprehend is discernible in the current generation. This decline could be due to overdependence on assisted writing tools that keep prompting sentence formation without understanding the intent and purpose behind it.

The absence of ample thinking before writing and the sheer utilization of AI tools for generating reports and documents makes one devoid of skill and imagination to create new things. The growing practice of lucid and well-researched essay-type responses from AI systems culled out of humongous web databases with slight modifications to differentiate theirs from others is challenging the purity and integrity of academic processes. Such AI facilitation discourages contemplation at individual student levels and the gradual loss of competencies for deeper thinking and comprehension is plausible. Such spoon-feeding by artificially intelligent systems is enfeebling metacognition and promotes a lackadaisical attitude in students in the education process. A cue can be drawn from how a toddler learns to stand, walk, run, jump, etc. on its own with stimulation from the community around them. Support is required, but there is a thin line between someone requiring support and someone becoming parasitic to the support for performing activities that call for interventions by the mental faculty of individuals.

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The originality of thought processes and intrinsic strength must never be sacrificed through any kind of technological intervention.

The core purpose of the education system to empower students with existing knowledge, ongoing advancements, and original thinking. Analyzing, report writing, etc. is likely to get reshaped with the evolving AI chatbots based on disruptive technology that redefines the ontology and epistemology of teaching, learning, examination, and research. The originality of thought processes and intrinsic strength must never be sacrificed through any kind of technological intervention. Let every individual’s mind be applied for delivering their best. Nonetheless, AI assistance or assistive IT gadgets may supplement after the basic premise has been built using the cognitive abilities of individuals with all possible novelty. The absence of deeper thinking and stereotyped repeatable responses from AI chatbots or other advanced systems will be affecting emotional strength as well as creativity in society.

The likelihood of loss of ingenuity, and diminishing cognitive skills need to be investigated thoroughly at every activity level. It is inevitable to have a detection mechanism to figure out the AI-generated content during every assessment process in order to strengthen the critical thinking abilities of every individual. This is also desired to capitalize on the creative potential of every individual for sustainability and take the civilization forward while deploying new generation AI tools to the extent that human cognitive skills are not affected adversely. Howbeit, well-trained AI chatbots have an empowering effect and are a blessing for those having limitations and require cognitive accessibility assistance.

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It is inevitable to have a detection mechanism in the future to figure out the AI-generated content during every assessment process in order to strengthen the critical thinking abilities of every individual.

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