How Are You Using A.I.?

Matt Webb, consultant and blogger

“Yes, programmatic A.I. is useful,” he said. “But more than that, it’s enormous fun.”

Get homework help.

Maya Upadhyay, high school student

Ms. Upadhyay takes advanced placement math classes, like statistics and calculus, and says when she’s confused with a homework question, she’ll feed it into ChatGPT.

It will give her an answer, but also step-by-step instructions on how it got there — a kind of self-guided tutoring process that she once used math apps or Khan Academy videos for.

“Sometimes if I’m still confused, I can ask the A.I. to put it into simpler terms. It’s just become another option for me to use and it’s been really helpful to have whenever I need it.”

Get feedback on fiction.

Paul Gamlowski, microfiction author

“After I finish 98 percent of a story, I prompt ChatGPT with:

Summarize the meaning or symbolism of this story I wrote. Mention any plot twist. Speculate on the moral of the story. Analyze how well the story reads to an average reader grammatically and structurally. Analyze if the title matches appropriately.”

If ChatGPT misses the point, or the moral, “that tells me as a writer probably many readers will miss it too.” And he’ll give it another shot. “So I just adjust a few words or a phrase and have it reanalyze and it gets it. It doesn’t take away from the story because I still write in a literary symbolic way, but it helps me get insight into what a future reader might get or miss.”

Get help when English is your second language.

Ronald Mannak, entrepreneur

“If I can’t think of a particular word, for example, it is super easy to just describe the word, and GPT almost always knows what I mean, even if the description is really bad.”

Students, read the entire article and then tell us:

• Which use of A.I. described in this article most excites or interests you? Why?

• Which uses were new to you?

• Did any give you ideas for ways to use the tools?

• How have you experimented with generative A.I. already, if at all? Did you have fun? Was it useful? What did you discover?

• We have asked students before about the ethics of using A.I. to help with schoolwork. One example in this article is about asking a chatbot to help with homework, and many more focus on using them to improve writing. Do you consider these uses ethical? Why or why not? Would your school allow them?

• What about these new tools do you find promising? What do you find troubling? Why?