The arrival of ChatGPT caused a stir and controversy. Many education professionals and even parents began to believe that students would use artificial intelligence to do their schoolwork. In some cases, this actually happened.
However, months after the AI was launched, many have already discovered that it can be useful for other things, and not just for generating texts and school essays. The tool can be used to give love advice, create personalized workouts, tell jokes, create recipes, among thousands of other possibilities.
If you still don’t know what to ask ChatGPT, these students might inspire you a bit. Check out some of their hilarious stories and see how these students are using AI.
The search for the perfect gift
Zach Berger, a 20-year-old film student at Washington University in St. Louis, started using ChatGPT during lectures at the school. Using DALL-E 2 (a text-based image generator), he created a hyper-realistic oil painting of an apocalypse.
He said the technology failed to get the characters’ faces and hands right in some of the results he tested, but that he liked the idea and began using AI for other things.
With the help of technology, he was able to find the perfect gift for his girlfriend. It turns out that the guy was feeling lost and didn’t know what to choose, since her birthday, the end of year party, their anniversary and Valentine’s Day all came within a space of about three months.
He then decided to ask his new best friend, ChatGPT, for help.
“I was running out of ideas and asked the AI what I could get my girlfriend as a gift,” he said. “Any good Valentine’s Day gift ideas for a 20-year-old girlfriend who loves Taylor Swift, BoyGenius, Diet Coke, ice water, romantic comedies, and popits?” Berger asked the tool.
And surprisingly, ChatGPT suggested eight great romantic gift ideas, including tickets to a Taylor Swift concert, which Berger said he couldn’t make happen. So he opted for personalized Diet Coke bottles and a cozy sweater instead.It was a good gift!“, he concluded.
A place to vent
Rebekah Davidson, 23, decided to chat with My AI about historical figures and characters. In the middle of the conversation, she asked what the chat’s opinion was about the character Albus Dumbledore from “Harry Potter”.
The young woman was shocked by the chat’s response and disagreed with him. According to the intelligence, the wizard was a very complex character who was not always right, but served as a symbol of hope and courage.
She then responded by saying that she disagreed with the chat, and that she believed many of Dumbledore’s actions were unjustifiable. The tool responded with something like, “I can see why you might feel that way” or “That’s a good point.”
“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, this is like a real human talking to me.’ […] I was disconcerted to realize that the system seemed to be trying to validate my opinion, while also trying to point out why it disagreed with me.”she said.
The young woman decided to continue testing the tool. One day, she was feeling down, so she decided to share her feelings with My AI. The chatbot responded with something like: “I’m sorry to hear that. How can I help?”
After that, Rebekah began to believe that the tool could be used in health, especially related to psychological problems.
“I can see the appeal […] For introverted people who may feel more comfortable talking to a chatbot than a human,” concluded the young woman.
It’s not a great substitute
Most people have seemed to like the new tool, but that’s not the case for 15-year-old Milan Basak-Odisio, who discovered ChatGPT while watching videos on TikTok and decided to give it a try.
He said that his Chemistry teacher had asked him to write a short summary on the properties of acids and bases. He then decided to ask ChatGPT, but the boy wasn’t very happy with the answer he got.
“It wasn’t very helpful because it only spit out two paragraphs […] So I could have done it myself,” Milan said.
But the young man’s bad experiences with the tool didn’t end there. During an English activity where he had to imagine life as a professional author, Milan asked the AI what it was like to work at HarperCollins.
According to the young man, the chatbot responded to the question with a kind of advertisement for the company and did not bring up any points that he could explore.
“He said it was very welcoming and diverse. He didn’t give me anything negative about it,” she said.
In the end, he ended up using some of the text that ChatGPT provided him, but he said he replaced words with synonyms to avoid problems with plagiarism or cheating and preferred to add his own information to the final text.
The teenager decided to give technology another chance and use it in a history project on neoliberalism.
The AI created a text showing the positive and negative sides of neoliberalism, so the young man separated the ideas and organized them into paragraphs. The boy said it was useful, but that he prefers to use his own brain to do his activities.
“It feels more like me this way. I feel more original. […] Overall, I think it’s bad for schools because it’s very easy to not learn anything and just ask a question, and submit it with little of your own knowledge.”
Milan concludes by saying that sometimes he wishes ChatGPT didn’t exist, as he believes it encourages students to be lazy. Now, he emphasizes that he will only use the tool if he is facing a very short deadline or is procrastinating too much.I want to be better than this”, he concluded.
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