Artificial intelligence and programs like ChatGPT open up a wide range of possibilities, but also harbor dangers. The Ministry of Education in North Rhine-Westphalia rates the technology positively overall and explains how schoolchildren can use ChatGPT – and what counts as cheating.
Working with text robots should remain expressly permitted in North Rhine-Westphalia’s schools. This emerges from a guide to dealing with artificial intelligence (AI) published by the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Education in Düsseldorf. “Schools receive a wide range of support for ChatGPT,” says a press release.
“Safe handling of AI applications is becoming increasingly important for future training, studies and work,” explains Minister of Education Dorothee Feller. “A general ban on using AI applications is out of the question.”
However, students who use artificial intelligence to complete their assignments must declare this. If this does not happen or is untruthfully denied, this will be assessed as the use of inadmissible aids and as an attempt at deception.
In accordance with the relevant examination rules and regulations, such cases would then have the same consequences as all other cheating or irregularities, the guideline explains. Even if it is not a question of plagiarism in the true sense, it is a matter of deceiving the authorship. As a preventative measure, tasks should be set in such a way that they cannot be completed solely with the help of AI.
On the one hand, AI can help to individually promote language, writing and assessment skills, explained the Ministry of Education. For example, the text robot ChatGPT can structure texts, offer formulation and correction suggestions, and control writing processes through direct feedback. On the other hand, texts created in this way could also contain false statements and reproduce prejudices. “The ability to distinguish fake news from facts on the basis of one’s own secure knowledge and to evaluate text statements will therefore become increasingly important,” says the press release.
ChatGPT is an application that uses artificial intelligence to create extensive responses to text input. The text robot can, among other things, answer questions in different languages, summarize and evaluate texts, write poems or computer programs, translate texts or create multiple-choice tests. The program is able to take into account the connections between successive text entries, so that the impression of a conversation is created.
