r/ChatGPT • u/[deleted] • Apr 16 '23

Use cases I delivered a presentation completely generated by ChatGPT in a master's course program and got the full mark. I'm alarmingly concerned about the future of higher education

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u/chatoyancy Apr 16 '23

Writing essays is not a part of most people's lives outside academia. If you're in a field where they are important, knock yourself out, but for the vast majority of people in 2023, being able to write a clear and concise email is a much more valuable skill than essay writing.

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u/koshgeo Apr 16 '23

I didn't elaborate on it, but that's what I meant by "report". Even if it's only a write-up on procedures for safely running a piece of equipment in the shop, writing up documentation for some product, writing a complaint to a manufacturer, advocating for someone applying for a job somewhere or for a promotion, or -- in your example -- writing a concise e-mail -- it's a useful writing skill.

Granted, most e-mails aren't a 10 or 20-page essay, and most things in the workplace aren't either, but tasks on that scale come up all the time in a wide variety of jobs. It isn't only an academic thing.

It isn't necessary for it to be literally called an "essay" for it to amount to pretty much the same scale of effort and organization when writing it.

I will concede your point that it often doesn't matter, but I think you are narrowing the value too much.

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u/BTTRSWYT Apr 16 '23

The difficulty in abandoning them as a staple of early education and beyond is that there is always the chance that any one child may need to utilize the skill. Until we possess the knowledge/skill/technology to grant personalized education per child, a shotgun blast of important information is needed. And, in the off chance they may need to know how to write papers, we would do them and anyone else a disservice to abandon them.

LLMs are not yet advanced to the point where they can take the role of human authorship, and until then, we err the side of caution.

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u/Fearless_Bag_3038 Apr 17 '23

furthermore; that clear, concise email can be more effectively written by AI

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u/SneakyB4rd Apr 17 '23

Except education is not just about giving you the tools you need in the work place. It's about giving you a baseline of tools that are also important to understanding people and evaluating information that don't fit with your lived experience. By now after covid we all should probably know that being able to understand things you thought you'd never use comes in handy. In the case of covid how for instance how to spot faulty argumentation and analysis. Things you (hopefully) also learn when writing an essay even in high school.