Feb 21, 2023 Chat Bots Rising

By TJ Ferrill

Photo created using DALL·E, an AI system by OpenAI:

Chat bots have been all the rage lately, and there’s little question as to why. With the recent research preview release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, many translation tasks are suddenly a textbox away. Describe a thing using language and get back a translation of that thing in an output format of your choosing: limerick, technical writing, JSON, x86 assembly, or anything else you can ask for. Of course, the tool isn’t perfect. The output isn’t always accurate. It can be biased. It doesn’t cite references or sources. It’s also hard to argue that it doesn’t have some utility.

After some exploration with ChatGPT, it seems evident that as this technology matures, it will prove ever-more challenging to traditional educational methods. Curious about a topic, users can explore ideas and new information from a perspective that is custom suited to their existing contextual knowledge; responses are tailored to the reader’s request. This includes the ability to bolster understanding about what is going on under the hood of chat bot models. Not sure what a transformer model does? It does a pretty good job of explaining itself if you ask. It is fascinating to understand how chat bots are built, what they are capable of, and what potential uses might be of interest to our community of researchers, educators, and learners.

A few weeks ago, the University of Utah’s Center for Teaching Excellence hosted a lecture at the Marriott Library titled “Unleashing Potential of ChatGPT and Generative AI”.  This lecture made clear that the University of Utah hasn’t been sleeping on the release and impact of these tools. Faculty and administrators are paying attention to the new reality brought on by the advent of [actually useful] chat bots. Conversations are in progress about how to lean into what future implementations of chat bots will mean for education, and how Utah can be at the forefront of that sweeping change.

It is an exciting time to be here. Creativity & Innovation will continue to thrive at the Marriott Library, as these tools create new pathways to and between collections, new lenses through which to view information, and as new ideas emerge from the synthesis of complex ideas and systems. Stay tuned as we formulate new ways to leverage emerging technologies for the campus community. Things are moving fast!

TJ Ferrill | Assistant Head of Creative Spaces
Creativity & Innovation Services / Creative Spaces
thomas.ferrill@utah.edu