Artificial Intelligence is Here to Stay. Let’s Look at Some Ways We Can Harness It.

As promised in the headline, there are five key points I’ve been thinking deeply about when it comes to AI.

1. Tools like ChatGPT are an excellent way to brainstorm topic ideas.
2. Teachers can leverage AI to come up with lesson plans and tweak how they teach based on ideas they may never have thought of on their own.
3. Anyone can take a topic and start a conversation with ChatGPT. Based on AI output, it’s likely you’ll get inspired to ask new questions and dive deeper into the topic.
4. AI can help humans see common problems from different angles. It’s easy to go down an “AI Rabbit Hole” by expanding on new thought processes based on old problems. Similarly, difficult subjects like “recursion” in computer science, can be explored and explained in different ways.
5. ChatGPT can take a piece of text and translate it into different languages. This adds a layer of accessibility to teachers and students who may have had a difficult time with language barriers in the past.

How to Start Brainstorming with ChatGPT – Plus an Example Prompt

Recently, I wondered about why the muscles on the front and sides of our legs are called quadriceps. I wanted to learn more, so I fired up ChatGPT to see what kind of a response I could get.

In my case, I had a curiosity about the quadriceps. If I were a student working toward a degree in physical therapy, this would be a great jumping-off point. Starting with an overview of the quadriceps I could keep prompting for more information, and then do more research offline to verify.

If I were a teacher, the answer ChatGPT gave me is a nice overview of each section of the muscle group. These explanations may be different than what I learned throughout my career, which could help me explain the topic in new and interesting ways. I could also keep prompting for more information. I would end up with a trove of information to help create new lesson plans.

New Angles and Explanations of Old Concepts – With Prompts

Let’s look at the concept of recursion. It’s been around for decades in the field of computer science. If you’re a student of computer science, and I believe everyone in the modern world should be, it’s good to have a grasp of what recursion is. Here’s a series of prompts I used to get a fresh perspective on how to explain this complicated concept.

Again, this is a jumping-off point into a topic for study. Teachers and students of computer science could take these explanations and use cases, and then modify them for the classroom.

Artificial Intelligence and Foreign Languages

As a lifelong language learner myself, and someone who’s tutored students from different countries, I find AI an invaluable tool for translation. I speak and study Japanese almost every day. Recently, I had a question about a word I didn’t know, so I asked ChatGPT to give me a translation and explanation.

Notice how the conversation progressed. I asked about the word talon, and then came across another question from a different source, so I kept going. I changed the line of questioning, but it was faster and easier to ask AI about the new topic. This a key difference between ChatGPT and Google search. In a classic search engine, we may have to dig through many webpages to find pertinent information. With AI generative conversation, we can save time getting to the answers we need.

In addition, ChatGPT makes it easy to translate an entire piece of text into another language. Tools like Google Translate can do this as well, so we’ll have to see which app emerges with the best translations. With tools like this, I find translations can be stilted or awkward. Sentences and phrases may not make sense. It’s best to have a human who speaks the native language look over any translations and see how they fare.

As useful as these tools are, they aren’t a substitute for human interaction or instruction. The tools are only as good as the prompts you give them. And even then, the output can be wrong or misguided. This is why AI won’t replace humans any time soon.

What AI Can and Can’t Do

If you’re new to AI and haven’t experimented with a tool like ChatGPT, I hope I’ve inspired you to dive in and give it a try. I hope these prompts will help you with your future prompt writing. Remember, it’s a conversation. Think of it like a conversation with the smartest, most well-read person you’ve ever met.

With that, there are some caveats. Despite the deep knowledge AI has, there are things that it can’t do. At least not yet. One thing AI can’t do is generate strong personal narratives or articulate genuine emotion. It’s simply not equipped for that. ChatGPT doesn’t have lived experiences to pull from. It can’t fathom what an emotion feels like.

For more information about ChatGPT in the classroom, the National Education Association published a recent article here.

Artificial Intelligence & the Future

Whether we like it or not, AI is here, and more widely available than ever before. I believe it will change the world. The question remains, will it be for better, or worse? As an optimist, I see these tools as a valuable resource for the better.

THROW YOURSELF LIKE SEED

by Miguel de Unamuno

Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;
sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate
that brushes your heel as it turns going by,
the man who wants to live is the man in whom life
is abundant.

Now you are only giving food to that final pain
which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,
but to live is to work, and the only thing
which lasts
is the work; start then, turn to the work.

Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your
own field,
don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it
to death,
and do not let the past weigh down your motion.

Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead
in yourself,
for life does not move in the same way as a group
of clouds;
from your work you will be able one day to
gather yourself.

“I help people and businesses make more money.”

Simple, captivating, appealing. It doesn’t go into details and I’m curious to see how this leads to conversations about the types of copywriting I do.

What types of elevator pitches are you using?