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ChatGPT is a new artificial intelligence chatbot that was introduced in late 2022. Now used by millions of people, this program can provide detailed responses to complex questions about any topic in a matter of seconds.  

After its quick rise in usage and notoriety, ChatGPT has become a regular resource for students and professors at universities across the nation. Many professors have incorporated ChatGPT into their classes and have been teaching students how to use it, while others worry this technology will make it easier for students to cheat on their assignments, tests and papers.  

Whether it’s beneficial or detrimental, it is inevitable that ChatGPT will continue to grow and rise in popularity. It begs the question: Should universities embrace this change or fight against it? 

Grant Coursey, a student at Colorado State University and fellow reporter at The Collegian, has done extensive research on ChatGPT and its impact on students and professors.  

“One point that was clear after talking to professors was that whether it’s good or bad, it’s here to stay,” Coursey said. “There are already millions of daily visitors, and that number will likely rise as the software improves and becomes more effective.” 

Coursey compared the situation colleges are in now to the situation many students and professors were in going back to the early 2000s.  

“If you go back to when the World Wide Web became popular, I’m sure that teachers worried about students using that resource to do the work that they were supposed to be doing,” Coursey said. “However, it was inevitable that the internet would become widely used, and our education system learned how to deal with it. Now in some classes, students are encouraged to use the internet for certain things.”  

“Some students decide to cheat, and that’s the way it’s always been. Even if the schools fight against ChatGPT, it will still be there for students to use, and some of them will use it in a dishonest way. Either way, this technology is going to continue to improve, and we might as well use it to our advantage.” -Grant Coursey, CSU student and Collegian reporter

Ben Condon, a junior at CSU, takes a computer information class in which the instructor encourages students to use ChatGPT.  

“It’s a great resource for our class,” Condon said. “We use it to check our work and learn how to use different systems. Our professor uses ChatGPT to find out more effective ways to do things and check our work.”  

That being said, students in writing-intensive majors have more of an opportunity to use ChatGPT to plagiarize than students in other majors. Although ChatGPT wouldn’t be super effective for complex math problems or specific equations, it can immediately write an informative essay about almost any topic in the world.  

Melanie Chaffey, a senior journalism student at CSU, first heard of ChatGPT through a teacher on the first day of spring semester classes.  

“My teacher emphasized that we cannot use ChatGPT to write papers and stated repeatedly that we’d be in a lot of trouble if we were caught,” Chaffey said. “Later, my friend showed me what ChatGPT could do, and I was shocked. If students were to use this to plagiarize, I feel like there wouldn’t even be a point to having an essay assignment anymore.”  

Despite the dangers of this technology, Coursey said that it’s important for the education system to embrace it rather than fight against it.  

“I think with a resource this powerful, it would be much more beneficial to the education system to regulate ChatGPT and incorporate it into classes rather than just ban usage of it,” Coursey said. “This technology can help students and teachers check their work and find out more efficient ways of solving problems, and as it improves, there will be much more benefits that we’re not even aware of yet.”  

Coursey agrees this technology can be used in a bad way, but this doesn’t sway his opinion.  

“Some students decide to cheat, and that’s the way it’s always been,” Coursey said. “Even if the schools fight against ChatGPT, it will still be there for students to use, and some of them will use it in a dishonest way. Either way, this technology is going to continue to improve, and we might as well use it to our advantage.”

Reach Jack Miller at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @millerjack02.