Chatbots Are Going To Be Awesome For Teachers
Arnold Kling says that he has no sympathy for a professor who worries about a student using a chatbot to cheat during an examination:
I have no sympathy for a professor who worries that students could use a chatbot to cheat on an exam. Chatbots and their relatives can be helpful for student assessment if you want them to be.
Not only do I agree, but I positively cannot wait to try out chatbots for both teaching as well as for evaluation. Worry? I'm positively giddy with excitement!
The only full fledged course I teach these days is the Principles of Economics course at the Gokhale Institute. And I only have two problems in teaching this course.
The first is that I have to cross University Circle in order to teach it. If you are not from Pune and are reading this, you cannot know what I'm talking about. If you are from Pune and are reading this, you cannot not know what I'm talking about.
The second problem that I have with teaching this course is that there are a hundred and fifty students who take this course. Which means, of course, that teaching this course becomes a series of speeches, rather than an actual class. Because relevant personalisation, and the ability to handle students doubts and questions becomes all but impossible across a hundred and fifty students.
Now, AI can do nothing about the first problem, because Pune's traffic is a problem worthy of ChatGPT-50, let alone ChatGPT-5. But the second problem? Ah, there many treats await us educators.
This is a custom GPT that I built, and is freely available on the ChatGPT website. All you need to do is (if you haven't already, that is) create a login ID for the website, and you should be able to try the Socratic Challenger for yourself.
If you're not sure of how to proceed, try clicking on one of the examples shown in the screenshot. Here's what my screen looked like when I clicked on the ATP example:
What this custom GPT does is that it acts like a personalised tutor. It is programmed to begin with a groan-worthy dad joke (a skill at which none can best me, bar none). Once that is out of the way, it asks you what you wish to learn. Feel free to specify the topic, the subject which contains the topic and your level of expertise - or any or none of the above, for that matter.
This custom GPT will then proceed to have a conversation with you over three "rounds" of questions. That is, based on what you say, it will push back and play devil's advocate in such a way that it tests your understanding of a subject, and your ability to talk meaningfully about it.
At the end of these three rounds, it will give you a "score", based on how well you did. It is (and will probably forever be) a work in progress, so feedback and tips on how to make it better are always going to be very welcome.
Is it perfect? Hell no.
Would I do a better job than it, if I were to engage in such a Q&A myself with a student? Almost definitely yes.
Will it do a better job than me across 150 students? What do you think?
I'm a little impatient by now with folks who insist on pointing out that teachers will always do a better job than will chat bots. One, that is not necessarily true. Second, even if it were to be true, it certainly isn't true at scale.
It does not matter how good, or dedicated, or focused I am at conducting vivas. I will never be able to maintain quality across 150 students. And I do not care who you are, I know you will not be able to maintain the same level of quality across 150 students. The last few vivas before your lunch break, before tea in the afternoon and just before you wrap up for the day will all be substandard vivas compared to, say, the first three of the morning.
So not this particular Socratic Challenger, perhaps. Nor the one that Arnold Kling came up with. But there will be, sooner or later, a most excellent chatbot that is customized just so, to meet each of your student's different needs. And this chatbot will do a better job than you will at assessing if each student in your class has truly gotten what was being explained in class.
Again, if the benchmarking is to be done for one student, AI will probably not be as good as your above-average teacher is right now. But if colleges want to enrol 150 students in a single class and call it a quality education, you'd have to be nuts to not use AI extensively for pedagogical and evaluation purposes.
No, it can't replace you just yet, don't worry. But also no, you can't teach well without it, and that was true as of yesterday.
I am willing to die on this hill: chatbots are going to be awesome for teachers.
And they probably are awesome for teachers already.
Let's go!