(
) On Tuesday. Reuters reports that announced plans to introduce ChatGPT across 23 campuses to California State University’s 460,000 students. The AI assistant’s education-focused version will provide personalized tutoring and study guide to students, while faculty can use it to do administrative work. Leah Belsky is the VP and general manger of education at OpenAI. She said this in a press release.
OpenAI started integrating ChatGPT in educational settings in 2023 despite initial concerns from some schools regarding plagiarism and possible cheating. This led to early bans at some US school districts. Over time, some educational institutions began to accept AI assistants.
Before OpenAI launched ChatGPT Edu (19459011) in May 2024, a version specifically designed for academic use, several schools were already using ChatGPT. These included the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, which employs frequent AI commentator Ethan Mollick (19459011), the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Oxford. OpenAI’s latest partnership with California State represents its largest deployment in US higher education. Reuters reports that the AI model makers are now competing in the higher education market. Google’s DeepMind divisionpartnered with a London University last November to provide AI education to teenagers. Google has invested $120 million in AI education programs and plans to implement its Gemini model into students’ school accounts.
The pros and cons
In the past, we’ve written frequently about accuracy issues with AI chatbots, such as producing confabulations–plausible fictions–that might lead students astray. We’ve also addressed the concerns about cheating. These issues still exist, and using ChatGPT to check facts is not a good idea. The service could introduce errors in academic work that are difficult to detect.
