Welcome to a fascinating exploration of how AI like ChatGPT impacts our lives and work. This lesson delves into real-world examples, from a basketball coach leveraging AI for practice plans to a lawyer facing the pitfalls of AI-generated legal cases. Engaging and thought-provoking, this material is perfect for teachers and self-learners who want to blend language learning with current technological trends. Join us to discover how AI is reshaping our world, one interaction at a time!
ChatGPT has been around for a year. Users discover it’s learn as you go
Warm-up Question: How do you think artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT will impact our daily lives?
Link to audio [HERE]
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
It’s been a year since ChatGPT made its public debut, and in that time, people have been trying to figure out what it’s good at, what it’s not good at and how AI tools more broadly will change how we live and how we work. As NPR’s Andrea Hsu reports, it’s a lot of learn as you go.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: If you wonder how useful, really, are these AI chatbots, well, consider this story from Jon Friedman about the time he dropped his daughter off at a community center for her first basketball practice.
JON FRIEDMAN: And I get there and the person signing all the girls up said to me, oh, she’s on this team. They don’t have a coach yet.
HSU: Well, Friedman played basketball in high school. He’s a big Steph Curry fan, but he’d never coached basketball before. Nevermind, he thought, and went to his computer. You see, Friedman is a corporate vice president at Microsoft. He’s leading the development of Microsoft’s chatbot, Copilot. He asked it…
FRIEDMAN: How do you get started coaching an eighth-grade girls basketball team?
HSU: The bot told him, understand the rules of the league, know the level of your players, plan practices. He then told it to come up with five days of one-hour practices for beginners.
FRIEDMAN: And I got all of these awesome practices that I then turned into practices that we used.
HSU: In Friedman’s mind, this is what AI should be – a tool to help us, not replace us. But already, newspapers have used AI to write recaps of high school sports matches. Video game companies are using AI to come up with characters. It’s easy to think could AI be coming for all of our jobs?
KARIN KIMBROUGH: I’m not saying that.
HSU: But Karin Kimbrough, chief economist at LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, says AI will change how most of us work.
KIMBROUGH: Sort of enhance what we can do, and ultimately what we’re hoping is that it’ll give us some productivity growth. It’ll make us more efficient.
HSU: But there are all kinds of pitfalls along the way. John Friedman readily admits AI is prone to mistakes, also known as hallucinations.
FRIEDMAN: It gets things wrong. It’ll confidently tell you something that’s just incorrect. And if people aren’t taking ownership and control over that, it’s so easy to spread misinformation.
HSU: In ways that could be harmful to people and society. It’s daunting, given these tools are available for anyone to use for fun or for work. Jeffrey Garcia, a technical program manager, tried using AI to overcome a lifelong frustration with art. As a kid, he would close his eyes and conjure up a detailed image in his mind.
JEFFREY GARCIA: And then my hands were incapable of creating it. So I have a deep love for art, but I suck at it.
HSU: Earlier this year, he started playing around with the program Midjourney. You give it instructions, it gives you an image. Garcia and his wife live outside Baltimore, and his wife’s a biologist. He thought, let’s get the program to create a vintage-style poster of a Baltimore oriole.
GARCIA: The bird species.
HSU: Which the AI delivered. Except, his wife pointed out, there were extra toes on its feet. Garcia was impressed that the bot thought to add a skyline with a couple Baltimore landmarks, but…
GARCIA: You know, if you’re familiar with the city, it doesn’t really hold up.
HSU: Experiments like this have informed how Garcia uses AI at work. He thinks of it as an assistant whose work needs to be checked. So a first draft of a project plan? Sure, he says, AI can handle that. Other things, like correspondence, he’s not ready to relinquish.
GARCIA: While I am – I’m a human being, I’m flawed, and will often miscommunicate, I don’t feel comfortable handing off this thing that I view as essential and deeply human to an automated system.
HSU: But not everyone will be so careful. Earlier this year, a New York lawyer suing an airline was caught citing bogus cases that ChatGPT had just made up. In court, the lawyer said he didn’t think the bot could do such a thing. Andrea Hsu, NPR News.
Vocabulary and Phrases:
- Debut: The first public appearance of something or someone.
- Learn as you go: Acquiring knowledge or skill in something by actually doing it or experiencing it, rather than by theory.
- Recap: A summary or review of what has happened.
- Pitfalls: Hidden or unexpected difficulties or dangers.
- Prone: Likely to experience a particular problem.
- Hallucination: An experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.
- Misinformation: False or inaccurate information, especially when deliberately intended to deceive.
- Daunting: Seeming difficult to deal with or intimidating.
- Conjure up: To make something appear or come to mind as if by magic.
- Vintage: Denoting something from the past of high quality or classic.
- Hold up: To remain strong or successful over a period of time.
- Relinquish: To voluntarily give up something.
- Flawed: Having imperfections or weaknesses.
- Bogus: Not genuine or true; fake.
Comprehension Questions:
- What is Jon Friedman’s role at Microsoft, and how did he use Microsoft’s chatbot, Copilot, in a real-life situation?
- In what way does Friedman believe AI should function, and why does he see it as a tool rather than a replacement?
- What concerns does John Friedman express about AI, and what is the term he uses for AI mistakes?
- How does Jeffrey Garcia use AI to address his frustration with art, and what unexpected result did he encounter in the creation of a vintage-style poster?
- What caution does Jeffrey Garcia exercise in his approach to using AI at work, and what aspect of his work does he hesitate to relinquish to an automated system?
Discussion Questions:
- Do you agree with Jon Friedman’s perspective on AI as a tool to assist rather than replace human efforts? Why or why not?
- How might AI be effectively utilized in creative fields, like art, according to the story of Jeffrey Garcia and his experiment with the program Midjourney?
- Considering the concerns raised about AI mistakes and misinformation spreading, what steps do you think should be taken to ensure responsible and ethical use of AI technology?
- In what areas of your life or work do you think AI could be most beneficial, and where do you see potential challenges or drawbacks?
- Reflecting on the story of the New York lawyer citing bogus cases created by ChatGPT, what ethical considerations should individuals keep in mind when using AI tools for professional purposes?
LanguageLeap 