ChatGPT, in just a few months, he managed to become everything that many dream of and strive for for years. He received his law degree from an American university, successfully completed his MBA and wrote his own research paper, which was also published in Google Scholars.

In addition, everything shows that he can work as an editor in magazines and even proofread authors’ books.

Capable of collecting, processing and synthesizing data, this application seems to be all-powerful as it can structure arguments and thoughts, essentially replicating human reasoning.

Its capabilities have even caused a reaction in the American academic community, as professors are afraid that now they will correct not students’ assignments and exams, but … ChatGPT results.

In the United States, in fact, they have already begun to revise the educational process in order to avoid copying phenomena, as a result of which teachers replace “homework” with group assignments, and tests with oral exams.

But are these solutions a one-way street for educators around the world? Will the “classic” pedagogical and academic process be forced to change due to man-made application?

Academicians of Greece and America, in a conversation with “K”, believe that we are close to such changes, which, of course, sooner or later will affect our country, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Chrysanthos Dellarokas, vice chancellor for digital learning and innovation at Boston University and member of the Greek government’s National Skills Council Science Committee, believes we will soon be turning to alternative learning methods thanks to artificial intelligence applications like ChatGPT.

As it was with “computers”, so it will be with ChatGPT

“When electronic calculators appeared, it no longer made sense to insist that students be able to do the calculations manually, so the methods of teaching mathematics, science and technology changed to devote more time to tasks that require theoretical understanding. Similarly, ChatGPT may herald the death of the written essay as a form of student assessment,” he says, but does not see this as a problem for the educational and academic community.

“We are already moving into a world where most of the communication is visual rather than written anyway. Teachers can now ask students to create multimedia presentations or group discussions. They may also ask students to critically evaluate essays created by ChatGPT. Thus, the students themselves will be the ones who will identify points that the artificial intelligence did not mention, or will check the reliability of the sources used to create the essay using a computer,” notes Hr. Delarocas.

However, the capabilities of the ChatGPT application have already become known to the Greek academic community, and many professors are rushing to try it out.

Stavros Kaperonis, Lecturer in the Department of Communication, Media and Culture at Pantheion University and Associate Professor (407) in the Department of Business Administration at the Athens University of Economics and Business, has tested a tool for using and producing artificial intelligence and presents his thoughts “K” and his concerns.

Plagiarism system does not detect ChatGPT

“By using and asking research questions on ChatGPT, I have found that his answers are fully documented and very well written. What bothered me was that while the answers seem logical and correct, it’s impossible to tell where they got that information from, as AI systems are trained through a large database to quickly extract information and produce results, St. Johns says. Caperoni.

In fact, the professor was not only impressed with how Chat GPT responded, but also with the result when he ran his results through the plagiarism system.

“The most impressive thing is that if you take the system’s responses and put them in the plagiarism system, the result is impressive as it shows a plagiarism rate of 3%, which is very low,” he notes.

“Culture of Writing” in Greek Universities

However, the fact that ChatGPT is not “detected” by existing systems of plagiarism is a problem, given that in our country the culture of “writing” is deeply rooted in universities, but mainly in schools.

St. Caperonis even brings up another parameter: “For exams that are online in the form of questions, I would tell you that yes, this can create a problem, since students can ask a question on ChatGPT and get an answer. In addition, the specific tool also recognizes Greek,” says Mr. Kaperonis, pointing out that “an important problem that can arise is that students write dissertations with this tool and plagiarism is not detected, although reference to the source is required.

However, Chr. Dellarocas does not believe that the sole purpose is to take action to limit ChatGPT and specific applications in general, as the upcoming changes are larger and more significant.

The definition of creativity will change

“What will happen with the introduction of these applications into our lives is that the definition of creativity will change. A simple essay that ChatGPT can generate automatically will no longer be considered a creative work,” he says, stating that he is confident that new concepts of creativity will soon emerge that will surpass the capabilities of artificial intelligence.

It’s hard to bet on Greece

However, for St. Kaperonis, as well as for Chr. Delarroca, betting on the correct integration of specific applications of artificial intelligence in Greek universities is difficult.

“Further technological development of Greece and familiarization with the applications of artificial intelligence is a difficult task, but not impossible. Teachers, like any other worker in the world, must be regularly retrained to familiarize themselves with the latest educational technologies and teaching methods. The most important obstacle, in my opinion, is that the state gives them opportunities (by creating the appropriate infrastructure) and, above all, incentives to do so,” says Chr. Delarocas.

For its part, St. Caperonis notes that “the bet is to see how we can integrate this tool into the educational process, and in fact soon to have a really valuable tool that has a lot to offer and certainly a lot to change in how we worked until now became a product of cannibalism”.

In fact, as he points out, an example would be to use a tool with which students can create their own applications (applications) with code, since ChatGPT helps you write code even if you don’t know anything.