AI or artificial intelligence is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable (McCarthy, 2007). In a simple word, AI technology is the science of making machines that can think like humans (Pattam, 2021). Nowadays, AI can be found in many places we are not even aware of. There are several ‘common’ AI technology samples that we can find in our daily lives:

1. Product recommendations that we see in our social media feed. The advertisement that you see can be different compared to what others see. Maybe you sometimes also wonder why the product advertisement in your social media feed usually are the ones that you just searched or even talk about it with your friends in social media recently. It is called targeted ads where AI can identify which ads are most likely to be of interest to the audience (DataToBiz, 2022).
2. Maps and navigation. Pick an example such as Google Map which we already heavily rely on. It can recommend the best route for the users using AI technology.
3. Auto-correct functions in text editor.
4. Chatbots. A lot of websites or marketplace support services utilize chatbots so that customers can ask questions directly. Although it might require additional assistance from humans for complex tasks, the availability of chatbots can be very helpful for answering frequently asked questions.
5. Virtual assistant. Don’t go too far. It is in your smartphone already. Google Assistant and Siri are the very close examples that we use very frequently.
6. And many more.

Moving from AI definition and samples, recently we heard about ChatGPT, one of AI chatbot. It is a very popular chatbot that many people claim is very ‘smart’. We can ask many things to ChatGPT and even ask opinions, and interestingly, the response doesn’t sound like a robot-created text, but it naturally sounds like a human-created text. In addition, it also can write programming codes! Try it by yourself: ChatGPT | OpenAI

Technically, it uses GPT-3 technology (keep in mind that chatbot is only one of technologies that can use AI and AI itself can be incorporated in many kinds of technology). According to Science Focus, GPT-3 (Generative Pretrained Transformer 3) is a state-of-the-art language processing AI model which is developed by OpenAI. It can generate human-like text and has a wide range of applications, including language translation, language modelling, and generating text for applications such as chatbots.

But, is chatGPT the only AI chatbot? The answer is no. There are many alternatives that you can find. Here is the example of the ChatGPT alternatives: 22 Best ChatGPT Alternatives for 2023 | Free & Paid (writesonic.com)

In addition to AI chatbot, the rise of AI tools which include the capability to produce video, image, and even programming code are increasing. AI tool can be defined as software application that uses artificial intelligence algorithms to perform specific tasks and solve problems (Synthesia, n.d.).

Looking at the euphoria of AI tools, many educators maybe feel ‘threatened’ as we cannot really make sure that the student submissions are their real works. Students can just ask the AI tools to do something and voila! the answer or output is there. But, if we explore more, we can see AI as a ‘friend’, not an ‘enemy’. It is just a matter of time where AI is the common tool that we use (in fact we use it already as what are mentioned in the above examples). It is almost impossible to ‘fight’ against AI. Instead, we have to utilize it optimally.

The simple example that we can reflect on about technology usage in education is the calculator. The first time a calculator was invented, it might be a ‘threat’ to mathematics teachers. But, in fact, it is not. The students still have to understand the logic and concept of mathematics and they also have to be able to use calculator and then process the numbers given to solve several cases. So, is the calculator an enemy or a friend? We will agree that it is a friend or helping tool, but it is not the final result. The students still have to analyze, process, and maybe make a recommendation or do some executions based on the calculator results. In the same sense, imagine that using AI maybe will be one of the skills that our students must have in the future (and even in the present!).

We will further explore about the possible utilization and cautions of using ChatGPT or AI tools in the context of education. Surprisingly, if we see deeper, it is also not only beneficial for students, but also for the lecturers or researchers.

1. It can help lecturers or students to quickly review summaries of many articles.
2. Help lecturer to get ideas for the quiz questions.
3. It can help students to gain insight that can be further analyzed or processed by students.It will require students to think critically.
4. It can help us to write the first draft that we can work on further.
5. It can help us to provide corrections or recommendations that we can work on further.
6. Intentionally includes AI tools in assignment. Example: ask students to submit paper using ChatGPT and ask them to provide critical analysis or explain the process of analyzing and correcting the machine-generated results. This method can help students to embrace the learning process instead of looking for an instant way to get the final result. And many more…

1. It can be bias and not accurate. It is not a real human. It relies on the data as its supply and source of learning. Therefore, we cannot trust AI tools 100% without critically thinking about its validity.
2. Essay or answer produced by AI may lack of critical analysis. The essay produced by AI can be ‘fishy’ and can be ‘sniffed’ by the lecturers. Therefore, what students (or even lecturers as AI ‘user’) should be aware is that AI is only a helping tool, and we have to use our critical thinking to understand the concept in the right context.
3. It doesn’t have real human interaction and personalized feedback in the learning process.
4. It can limit students (or lecturers) understanding to certain thinking or answer/output that is produced by AI tools (which refers to the same data source). It can limit the ability of students to develop their own perspective or creative thinking.
5. Privacy. Every user of AI tools should be aware of their data stored in the tool.
6. Potential misuse of the tool where the students rely too heavily on AI tools rather than developing their own opinion, knowledge, and problem-solving abilities.

We can see AI tools as helping tool for lecturers and students with the mindset that we still have to use critical thinking to analyze and process the AI tools response/generated output. Students have to understand that learning process is important, and we should not only try to find a good score (that can possibly lead to misuse of the tool or cheating). Getting an ‘answer’ or a specific output is not the main goal, but understanding the concept, experiencing the significant learning process, and exercising our critical thinking are the more important things. On the other hand, lecturers or educators should be prepared to the new and transformative course and assessment design to adapt teaching process in today’s era. You can see this  link to explore more about some ideas or practices that you can incorporate into your learning.

Furthermore, to adapt well and be equipped in the workplace, students need to exercise critical thinking, ethical thinking, systems thinking, creativity, and future-oriented solution creation (Cochrane, 2023). See this article:  How Should Universities Respond to the Challenges of ChatGPT? (al-fanarmedia.org)). We must be aware that our future workforce will require higher skill. The advancement of technology has the potential impact to the loss of many jobs, especially in lower-skilled roles that can be ‘replaced’ by technology. The shift and transformation in education is inevitable. We have to adapt quickly to prepare our students to thrive and adapt with technology.

Similarity checking tool technology providers such as Turnitin are aware of this AI text generator technology. Turnitin, in its official blog, states that they are working on Turnitin’s AI writing and ChatGPT detection capability. See this link: (1) Sneak preview of Turnitin’s AI writing and ChatGPT detection capability | Turnitin, (2) AI Writing | AI Tools | Turnitin. This new capability (in preview mode) is launched on April 5, 2023.

Here is the screenshot of what it looks like:

n the example above, we tried to put an essay from AI text generator and Turnitin detects it as 100% AI. Turnitin also provides a good explanation that the result only determines if the writing was likely generated by AI or not. Turnitin also notes that it is essential to understand the limitation of AI detection (see this link) before making decisions or judgement about a student’s work.

In addition, if you want to explore more, you can also check some of these free AI checking tools (or you can even try asking chatGPT whether the text you provided are created by them or not):

1. AI Text Classifier – OpenAI API
2. GPTZero

Just an additional sidenote for GPTZero, it shows perplexity and burstiness score. Referring to Bowman’s article on National Public Radio (npr) website, GPTZero uses two indicators: “perplexity” and “burstiness”. Perplexity measures the complexity of text. She describes that if GPTZero is perplexed by the text, then it has a high complexity and it’s more likely to be human-written. Separately, burstiness compares the variations of sentences. Put it simply, humans tend to write with greater burstiness while AI-generated writings tend to be more uniform.

In summary, technology is always evolving. In the context of AI, we should embrace the change and it does require us to change our perspective on how we see education and technology. From lecturer’s perspective, well-designed pedagogy and course/assessment design will help us to facilitate the learning process. From student’s or learner’s perspective, looking at AI as a helping tool while we’re exercising our critical and creativity is important. Relying on AI alone will not take us anywhere, instead, we must master AI utilization as it may become one of required future skills.