The perception of Artificial Intelligence in educational contexts after the launch of ChatGPT: Disruption or Panic?

Abstract

The year 2022 has ended with one of those technological innovations that have a hard-to-predict behaviour, a black swan, hogging the limelight in traditional media and digital media. Indeed, it is ChatGPT. Although artificial intelligence had already been in the news and often masked under various other meanings, the ChatGPT phenomenon has once again brought this discipline and its positive and negative effects on our society to the forefront. Reactions to its launch, influenced mainly by its ease of access and use, have been varied, ranging from the enthusiasm of innovators and early adopters to the almost apocalyptic terror of the Terminator movie. Of the multiple applications of this tool, the most significant debate focuses on its implications in Education and Academia due to its tremendous power to generate texts that could very well pass for human creations. We are at the dawn of a technology that has gone from being a toy tool to bidding to become a disruptive innovation. Whether it succeeds or not will depend on many factors, but if it does not, it will be another one like it. Denying it or banning it will do absolutely nothing to stop the tsunami effect that has already begun. For all these reasons, we must first understand these technologies based on large language models and know their benefits and weaknesses, as well as what they really mean for a specific sector of activity, such as Education. After getting to know the technology and the tool, one would be in a position to use (or not) its potential and to prevent or detect its possible pernicious effects, presumably by changing and adapting processes that are probably profoundly rooted and that, therefore, forced to leave the comfort zone, which is always the cause of resistance to change and extreme reactions. These responses usually will not stop technology from reaching its productivity plateau when it becomes part of the daily life of a sufficient majority of users. This is always the cause of resistance to change and extreme reactions that will not usually stop technology from reaching its productivity plateau when it becomes part of the daily lives of a sufficient majority of users, especially when it is also a question of transversal tools that will spread their usage patterns among the different application domains.