1st Place, Pro-Con Opinion Columns
2022-23, Division 3, News Writing
By Camp Daniels & Bella Alimenti
Wind-Up
St. Joseph HS
Pro ChatGPT
Since the dawn of the digital age, technology has perpetually become more innovative and powerful. Now, with the emergence of a new artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, people have a lot of questions. Will I lose my job? Will I be replaced? Will robots be- come conscious and take over the world? Even though ChatGTP is capable of explaining the theory of relativity or writing your English paper, it’s unlikely that it will do any of those things. ChatGPT, a chatbot created by OpenAI, is able to generate readable text on command for a variety of purposes. It’s efficient, accurate, and it’s taking the world by storm with over a mil-lion users signing up for it within a month of its November 30th release.
In reality, ChatGPT will likely do more good than harm. One of the most valuable things it will save is time. Time is money, and with this new technology, it will save people countless hours. It can do more routine things like translations and recipes, but it can also debug code and write whole novels. “ChatGPT is a great tool because of how flexible it is, whether you just need an idea or something polished it can help. It’s also awesome when I can pull out a 16 line sonnet about something that happened five minutes before,” Juswin Judge, 11, said.
Right now, ChatGPT is free to use, and the companies and people who take advantage of this opportunity are at a massive advantage. Google has been available to use for years, but it can only do so much. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is capable of offering advice on how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR in the style of the King James Bible.
The most exciting thing about ChatGPT is that it’s just the beginning. A Google subsidiary, DeepMind has already announced a similar chatbot that is said to be more powerful than ChatGPT. In all likelihood, there will be a plethora of new AIs released in the near future.
I can see how teachers may be worried about the misuse of ChatGPT, but if used correctly, it can be an asset in the classroom. “It could be a quick way to brainstorm information about a topic. If you’re trying to find information quickly, ChatGPT lays it out pretty nicely,” Mr. Ryan Walters said.
AI is the future whether it frightens you or not. Years from now, our daily lives will be drastically different and there will be advancements that we can’t even comprehend. The possibilities of AI are endless.
Con ChatGPT
Taking the education and tech world by storm, ChatGPT’s release has been at the forefront of daily conversations since its release in November of 2022. The chatbot is capable of writing anything in response to a prompt by taking information from its expan- sive database and creating an original response to just about any question. Technically ChatGPT isn’t plagiarism and it can be accessed as a free internet extension without download. These unique features allow anyone to generate content that isn’t their own without repercussions, changing how students complete assignments and how we view written work.
Need a meal plan for your picky and kosher kid? Well, chatGPT can make you a meal plan and then put it into table format. What about writing a poem about Kansas? ChatGPT will be able to write you a poem about Kansas. Say, it could even write it in Shakespearean style. Can ChatGPT do my dishes? Obviously not, but it can do many menial tasks that are done in workplaces or schools. Although ChatGPT is capable of so much, it still has flaws. The AI bot was trained to generate responses that would satisfy a human, which means that the response doesn’t neces- sarily have to be true.
“I kind of think of it as a better search engine. Instead of typing into Google and getting answers to a question, you’re typing into this, which is probably evaluating more than Google. So in some ways it’s a better Google, because it sounds more human. But that creates some concerns because it’s going off the Internet. It doesn’t really know what’s right and what’s not.” Micah Wagoner, 12, said.
If people start using ChatGPT for everything, how credible will our own opinions be? Where does that leave the rest of us who hope to seek out credible information? How does Chat GPTs seemingly limitless possibilities affect all of the students coming out of college and entering the workplace? What about us high schoolers who need to create our own material?
ChatGPTs release has raised an alarming number of these kinds of questions, but when the calculator came out 40 years ago, it was also a shock to mathematicians and educators. The calculator made it easier for students to put complex equations into practice immediately and drastically shortened the time needed to teach. The world was able to adapt when the modern calculator came out, but ChatGPT aims at something that requires a lot more original thought than high school-level mathematics.
“If you don’t have to muddle through your own ideas in logical sequencing and you can get the program to do that for you, then you’re losing out on practicing logical reasoning and thinking about what the reader needs to know. And if we don’t have to solve that, then our brains are not thinking about producing the best sequence of information. So even that which seems innocuous as a help, I think will start hindering our own cognitive capabilities.” Mrs. Klusendorf said.
Writing has been a form of artwork since neanderthals have been drawing in caves. It is a bridge between language and human connection, so if an AI can do the writing part, how does it affect the connection we have between each other? How close are we to becoming vegetables? Are we already there?
“I would argue we’re almost there anyways, and we didn’t have chatbots until recently. I think a lot of people today find it easier, instead of think- ing for themselves or thinking critically, to just do whatever they say on social media. Mr. Mclauglin said.
While chatGPT can create some great responses, only human-generated writing has an individuality that chatGPT just can’t replicate. The lengthy writing process and your personal experience as a human ultimately makes a unique piece of written work.
NW-10. Pro-Con Opinion Columns
Each entry must:
- have two (2) columns, each written by a different author, that express opposing viewpoints on one topic.
- show the two columns as a package, allowing readers to view both at the same time. Columns appearing in print should be published adjacent to each other on the same or opposing pages; columns appearing online should link prominently to each other or appear on the same webpage.
- have both columns submitted together in the same entry form
- have a standing head that indicates the pro/con nature of the package
- carry bylines or other writer identification to indicate the personal opinion nature of the content
FOR ONLINE ENTRIES, submit the URL to one column in the URL field and the other in the Additional Information field.
A school may submit a second entry in this category, and the pieces may be written by the same columnists or combination including one of the same columnists. Submit a PDF of the print page(s) on which the entry was published or the URL to the entry on an online news site.
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Topics relevant to interests and/or welfare of school or students
- Two pieces, while offering opposing views, are consistent in style and tone
- Both pieces win reader interest with compelling leads
- Present evidence/interpretation in logical sequence
- State issue; uses effective examples, facts and comparisons to clarify
- Deal with specific issue; avoids preaching, rhetoric and clichés
- Show sufficient thought and knowledge of subject, developed with personal style
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Proper diction/grammar