A Wharton School professor whose classes required using ChatGPT to write essays says students fact-checked and quickly understood AI's accuracy and bias issues
(Spoiler alert: it has been very successful, but there are some lessons to be learned) — I fully embraced AI for my classes … Tweets: @doakshannon , @emollick , @emollick , @tunguz , @drphiltill , and @markwarschauer Tweets: Dr. Shannon H. Doak / @doakshannon : This is why I think we need to spend more time on teaching students to use tools like this rather than waste time trying to #block #ban #detect or make it punitive. #ChatGPT #AI is the new calculator! #AIassisted #Web3 https://twitter.com/... Ethan Mollick / @emollick : I required AI in my classes this semester, and its going well! Some reflections: inaccuracy may be less of a concern than many worried about (students get the problem & it actually provides an opportunity to apply learning) but training on AI tools is key https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/ ... Ethan Mollick / @emollick : I had my students “cheat” and create AI essays. Every teacher should know more sophisticated prompts resulted in essays that GPT-Zero would not identify as AI-created (and, of course, TurnItIn didn't work all) More early reflections on requiring AI use: https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/ ... Bojan Tunguz / @tunguz : Most educational institutions are by know fully aware of the power of AI for instruction and assignment help. While the majority of them are viewing AI with a combination of skepticism and weariness, Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of the https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/ ...... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Dr. Phil Metzger / @drphiltill : This is an interesting application of AI in the classroom. https://twitter.com/... Mark Warschauer / @markwarschauer : A spectacular and important read on how to teach students how to write with AI #ChatGPT https://twitter.com/...
One Useful ThingEthan Mollick
Context & Ripple Effects
The classroom experiment arrived amid sharply different views of ChatGPT: Princeton professor Arvind Narayanan had foregrounded the system’s unreliability in a warning about ChatGPT’s tendency to generate plausible nonsense, while a New York City girls’ school was already using generated materials to examine the tool’s strengths and weaknesses in class.
Mollick’s approach makes use itself the lesson: students must test outputs rather than treat the model as an authority. It offers a concrete alternative to framing generative AI primarily as a detection or discipline problem.
First-order effects
Wharton students using ChatGPT for essays are pushed to verify claims and identify biased or inaccurate output as part of completing the assignment, rather than encountering those limits only after submitting work.
Ethan Mollick can evaluate students’ ability to interrogate and improve AI-generated material, not solely their ability to produce an essay without assistance.
Assessment practices face pressure to distinguish uncritical AI submission from documented fact-checking, revision, and judgment by students.
Third-order effects
If such assignments spread, AI literacy becomes a curriculum and assessment capability built around verification and judgment; that directly addresses the later concern that AI can short-circuit the learning processes needed to use it well.
Education’s generative-AI debate shifts from whether the tool appears in student work to whether institutions can design workflows that make its errors visible and consequential.
The trend: Education is moving from policing generative-AI use toward embedding it in guided workflows that teach verification, bias recognition, and human judgment.
This is why I think we need to spend more time on teaching students to use tools like this rather than waste time trying to #block #ban #detect or make it punitive. #ChatGPT #AI is the new calculator! #AIassisted #Web3 https://twitter.com/...
I required AI in my classes this semester, and its going well! Some reflections: inaccuracy may be less of a concern than many worried about (students get the problem & it actually provides an opportunity to apply learning) but training on AI tools is key https://oneusefulthing.s…
I had my students “cheat” and create AI essays. Every teacher should know more sophisticated prompts resulted in essays that GPT-Zero would not identify as AI-created (and, of course, TurnItIn didn't work all) More early reflections on requiring AI use: https://oneusefulthing.sub…
Most educational institutions are by know fully aware of the power of AI for instruction and assignment help. While the majority of them are viewing AI with a combination of skepticism and weariness, Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of the https://oneusefulthing.s…
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If a decade ago China was the wild, wild East for tech entrepreneurship & innovation,it's a very different country now under Xi.ChatGPT serves as both a shock&a revelation:China lags far behind the U.S. in A.I. & gov't control stifles innovation. My latest https://www.nytimes.com…
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