ChatGPT in evaluation – An opportunity for greater creativity?
By Natalie Simon
As debate rages over the possibilities and risks to higher education of artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, evaluators are also asking what role AI and machine learning can play in their field.
Speaking at a virtual symposium hosted by the Centre for Research Evaluation at the University of Mississippi in the United States on March 24, independent evaluation consultant Silva Ferretti described ChatGPT as the perfect bureaucrat: pedantic and by the book.
The symposium was titled “Are We at a Fork in the Road?” and explored implications and opportunities for AI in evaluation. It was hosted by Dr. Sarah Mason of the University of Mississippi and Dr. Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead of the University of Connecticut, co-editors of New Directions for Evaluation, a publication of the American Evaluation Association.
They said that disciplines around the world were grappling with the question of whether ChatGPT heralded a fork in the road with respect to powerful new generative AI. “This potential fork emerges because generative AI is distinct from earlier AI models in that it can create entirely new content.”