Artificial intelligence, especially within the last decades, is maximizing the integration of technology into our lives.

‍

Whether used personally or commercially, we have all seen the frequent use of AI within our lives. One of the biggest and most widely known forms of AI technologies is the chatbot. The chatbot is a computer program that coversates with users, often using NLP and generative AI. Simply put, the chatbot is a helpful assistant.

‍

The use and popularity of AI chatbots has exploded with OpenAI’s ChatGPT model. Released in late 2022, ChatGPT has garnered over 100 million users, making it one of the fastest-growing applications. With ChatGPT gardening so much worldwide recognition, the competition to branch into more diverse fields has been pursued by many companies. Many chatbots may even be already in your lives with Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. Most interestingly, Harvard University has pursued its goal of changing its course education with the implementation of its own CS50 bot.

‍

The Chatbot Spectrum…

‍

AI chatbots are most useful in completing work that requires research and prior knowledge. For example, chatbots automate organization while always being available. These qualities make the chatbot the pinnacle of convenience by minimizing tasks. If you want as much information about a certain topic, chatbots are much more efficient than scouring books and websites. Chatbots are also very multi-faceted, making them suitable for all topics.

‍

However, the convenience of chatbots has raised concerns about an AI-filled future. For example, many worry that people will become over-reliant on AI technologies with a loss of their own intuition. This is especially applied to schools, where student work can be completed at the convenience of a chatbot. Sometimes, there are even concerns about the functionality of chatbots, such as the chatbot’s tendency to output inaccurate information in the form of hallucinations. However, the way Harvard is introducing chatbots to education not only maximizes student learning but also addresses concerns about overreliance on chatbots and functionality.

‍

How Harvard is Changing the Use of AI chatbots…

‍

With chatbots becoming more popular, Harvard University is incorporating chatbots within its resources. The CS50 bot was developed entirely by Harvard University, and will not use any previous models such as ChatGPT or GitHub Copilot. The goal of the Chatbot is to be an assistant to debug code, give feedback, and answer questions. The most innovative part of their AI technology is that it is designed to provide helpful hints, instead of providing full-on answers such as other chatbots.

‍

With such a huge project, Harvard is providing the chatbot for their computer science courses. Most importantly, the chatbot will be used in CS50, Harvard’s provided computer science courses on EDX. With over 5 million students, CS50 is a staple within the computer science field. With many online and Harvard students taking CS50, David Malan and his staff hope to provide a teacher to student ratio for every student enrolled in CS50. Most consequently,  Harvard is also pushing a progressive goal to use chatbots to make students learn efficiently while still using their intuition as the basis of their work.

‍

As Harvard is one of the most well known college in the world, their new use of the chatbot can have a ripple effect on education systems. Harvard has also outlined goals to expand the chatbot into other fields such as the humanities and physical sciences. With Harvard having current success with the chatbot, it is almost certain that other prestigious universities and institutions around the world will invest in and use similar chatbots. The local school level can also become another possible use of similar educational chatbots. It is evident that the use of educational chatbots is a byproduct of AI becoming a staple of our lives. AI will not only provide more resources to learn but to succeed more than ever before.

‍

‍

Works Cited

[1] Anon, What is a chatbot?. [Online]. Available: https://www.ibm.com/topics/chatbots. [Accessed 19, September, 2023].

[2] R. Shewale, 32 Detailed ChatGPT Statistics — Users, Revenue and Trends, September, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.demandsage.com/chatgpt-statistics/#:~:text=ChatGPT%20has%20over%20100%20million,by%20the%20end%20of%202023.  [Accessed 20, September, 2023].

[3] C. Thorbecke, AI tools make things up a lot, and that’s a huge problem, August, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/29/tech/ai-chatbot-hallucinations/index.html#:~:text=Researchers%20have%20come%20to%20refer,chatbots%20as%20%E2%80%9Cpathological%20liars.%E2%80%9D. [Accessed 20, September, 2023].

[4] E. Dreibelbis, Harvard's New Computer Science Teacher Is a Chatbot, June, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.pcmag.com/news/harvards-new-computer-science-teacher-is-a-chatbot. [Accessed 21, September, 2023].

[5] S. Thomas-Oxtoby, Nearly 5 million people have taken this online course—here’s how it can kickstart your computer science career, June, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://fortune.com/education/articles/nearly-5-million-people-have-taken-this-online-course-heres-how-it-can-kickstart-your-computer-science-career/. [Accessed 21, September, 2023].

[6] CS50, CS50's AI-based chatbot on NewsNation with Marni Hughes, July, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYnoZP9ZggI. [Accessed 22, September, 2023].  

‍