ChatGPT was released a year ago, so how have schools adjusted since then?

I just hope that everybody takes some time to learn more about this technology because

it's going to impact our young people for the rest of their lives.

It's Monday, November 13th, and you thought right, it's Science Friday.

Thank you. November 13th, and you thought right, it's Science Friday. I'm Cy-Farre producer, D. Peter Schmidt.

When Chad GPT was released last year, many schools banned the technology, citing how it could be used for cheating and essay plagiarism.

But now, a lot of those bands have been lifted. So we thought

it was a good time to check in on how this is all going. Ira Flato talks to one English professor

about her efforts to teach students and her fellow faculty on the best way to use the tech in the classroom.

I'm joined by Dr. Gwentarbach's professor of English at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

She's helping to lead the university's implementation of generative AI in classrooms

and teach not just students, but faculty on responsible ways to use it.

Dr. Tarbach, welcome to Science Friday.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. Let's talk about a lot of schools are banning this technology, right? But many have reversed course on these bans. Why is that? Well, I think that whenever a new technology is released, especially one that has so much of impact. It can be very frightening at first for anyone,

especially for, you know, humanities faculty, for whom this may have been absolutely new information.

Our whole identities as academics are often wrapped up in our ability to write and to teach

critical thinking and to think that a bot who

didn't have 30 years of training could come up with some responses that sound a lot like our own

can be very, very intimidating. So what has the reaction been like at your own school among the faculty

and students? Well, you know, one of the things I'll say is I also, in addition to being a

professor of English, I also direct the Office of Faculty Development within WMUX, which is our

university's innovation hub. And when Open Eye released ChatGPT, we sat down and we really started to

...