Andreas Schleicher, the director of education and skills for the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, believes that the arrival of ChatGPT will have a positive impact on education. He says that educators need to focus on teaching subjects that technology is not good at, which gives people the opportunity to concentrate less on tasks that technology can perform equally well.
Schleicher explains that the future is not about technology versus humans, but integrating technology with humans. He states that ChatGPT pushes us to think harder about what makes us human and develop human skills that are important, such as imagination and creativity.
In an interview with China Daily on the sidelines of the World Digital Education Conference, Schleicher points out that the kinds of things that are easy to teach and test have become easy to digitize. He says that the world no longer rewards individuals just for what they know, as Baidu or Google can provide instant answers to factual questions. Instead, the world rewards people for what they can do with what they know, and ChatGPT pushes us to work harder on this.
Schleicher sees ChatGPT as a powerful tool in the development of education. However, he warns that young people need to understand the algorithms that underpin ChatGPT. He says that if people do not understand an algorithm, they will soon become the victim of that algorithm, and there is a great risk that people will blindly follow the answers provided by ChatGPT rather than question them and create new knowledge.
Schleicher believes that the arrival of artificial intelligence really pushes people to think hard about what education is and the purpose it serves. He states that humans need to work hard to win the race with technology. Young people need to be ready to navigate ambiguity, manage complexity, distinguish fact from opinion, and understand computational thinking as well as the ideas and nature of algorithms.
In summary, the arrival of ChatGPT presents an opportunity for educators to focus on developing human skills that are important, such as imagination and creativity. While ChatGPT has the potential to make learning more interesting and powerful, educators need to ensure that young people understand the algorithms that underpin it and develop the skills necessary to navigate the complex and ambiguous world that they will inherit.