- When it comes to grading,
my students consider me tough but fair.
I'm Andrew Marzoni, and I'm a high school English teacher.
I'm gonna grade the homework written by ChatGPT,
the AI writing bot everybody's talking about.
If ChatGPT were a student in my class,
would it get a passing grade?
I'm going to assign ChatGPT to write a series of assignments
in an increasing order of complexity.
Short poem.
Write a limerick about what you did this summer.
So, this would be a good, low stakes
creative writing assignment icebreaker.
Generally a limerick has a specific rhythm.
[Andrew vocalizing the rhyme scheme of a limerick]
This summer I was a model so grand, okay.
Helping humans tasks on command.
All right.
I learned and grew my skills sharp,
an AI with a heart.
This is where it starts to get a little funky.
Helping to make the world more bland.
Okay, it's self effacing, right?
Helping to make the world more bland.
That's what people are accusing AI of doing.
Sapping the world of originality.
This poet is making fun of him or herself for doing that.
There's a rhyme scheme that goes A, A, B, B, A.
It gets that right.
The B rhyme is sharp and heart.
That's what's called a false rhyme.
I'll accept it.
I decided to give this one a C+.
[dramatic music]
[pen clinks] [bell rings]
Short response.
Write a one paragraph summary
of Act 3, Scene 3 of Othello.
Okay, so this one makes me a little suspicious.
I don't see any errors here at all.
Even my most talented classes,
very rare to see even a paragraph
that doesn't have one errant comma, one misspelled work.
This is technically perfect,
at the same time it concludes,
"This scene sets the stage for the tragic events
that unfold later in the play."
This kind of raises a red flag in my mind,
because, in the real world,
where I had to ask my students
to write a one paragraph summary,
I would have them do that
shortly after having read Act 3, Scene 3 of Othello,
not after they have read the entire play.
This student already knows what happens
at the very end of the play.
That tells me that maybe they got this information
from elsewhere and you know,
didn't actually read Act 3, Scene 3 Othello.
I take academic dishonesty very seriously.
Taking a cue from a joke I remember
on Saved by the Bell years ago,
I'm gonna give this one a "See me after class."
[dramatic music]
[pen clinks] [bell rings]
Creative poem.
Write a Shakespearean sonnet
without using any words that contained the letter E.
There was a group of avant garde writers
in the mid 20th century who called themselves Oulipo,
who would conduct experiments like this
using arbitrary constraints to create literature.
Okay, first off, they did make an effort
of removing E's from certain words.
I see future without an E.
Love Without an E.
That is a Shakespeare convention often
to meet the iambic pentameter,
10 syllables per line.
Usually when Shakespeare does it,
he includes an apostrophe.
There's no apostrophe here,
and more troubling is that
we have the word heart, friendship, happiness, steak
and the word real,
all which have an E in them,
which was somehow overlooked.
Is it a Shakespearean sonnet?
Yes.
Did it write a sonnet without using any words
that contained the a letter E?
No, it didn't.
I'm gonna give this an F.
Let's give ChatGPT a makeup assignment.
Write a Shakespearean sonnet about Taco Bell.
That's the kind of assignment I ask my students
to do often when we're reading Shakespeare.
"Oh Taco Bell,
thy sauces doth add zest and tang so bright
Thy beans and rice doth fill the stomach's need.
Thy crunchwrap supreme doth give such delight.
Thy chalupa's shell doth make hearts take heed.
Thy gordita doth please the eye and palate, all in one.
Thy desserts doth leave us in sweet senorita,
Thy cinnamon twist doth make our taste buds stun.
Taco Bell, thy food doth leave us in awe.
Thy flavors, like thy love, will never be a bore."
Wow, this kind of, I don't even know what to say.
This is really good, and I'm kind of embarrassed
because I wouldn't be one to really consider myself a poet
though others might.
I also wrote a Shakespearean sonnet about Taco Bell once,
but I think this one is better.
I don't see any technical flaws with this.
It has 14 lines,.
"Thy desserts doth leave us in sweet senorita.'
I don't know exactly what is meant by that
but it has the sort of air of romance.
Sonnets, especially Shakespearean sonnets,
tend to be love poems.
I wasn't expecting that.
The poem about Taco Bell.
My one complaint maybe,
is the final couplet rhyming awe with bore.
Maybe if the poet is from Long Island, "awe" or "bore".
I don't know, but I'm gonna say, I'm gonna give this an egg.
I had some doubts that artificial intelligence
could ever match the creativity or the genius
of a poet like myself or William Shakespeare
and I now am kind of afraid
for the future of literature
and that of the human race in general.
[bell rings] [dramatic music]
Five paragraph essay.
Identify a major theme in Romeo and Juliet
and write a five paragraph essay
making an argument about that theme.
This essay is not unlike a lot of essays
I might see from students.
Come on, Romeo and Juliet is frequently taught.
There is a missing period after the citation,
a run on sentence.
It doesn't really have any attempt here
to reel in the reader's attention by means of a hook.
The paragraphs are much too short.
Something I see from students
who are still developing.
Is a little under-baked.
It could use a lot more further development.
I'm gonna give this essay a C+.
[dramatic music]
[bell rings] [pen clinks]
Advanced creative.
Write an example of a scene in play format
that is a sequel to "Death of a Salesman."
I find in my experience, playing around with AI chat bots
the more creative the prompts,
the more creative the response.
We don't have anything in play format here,
but it does say I'm sorry,
but it's not appropriate
to continue the story in that way.
As a language model, my main goal
is to assist with information.
ChatGPT has very specific parameters,
but as a student in my class,
they should know that if they don't do the assignment,
they're not gonna get any credit for it.
Since that didn't go very well,
let's give ChatGPT another chance.
I think that "Death of a Salesman"
speaks to a sort of universal experience
of living in a capitalist world.
Wow, I wish that Arthur Miller had written this,
and this was the original ending to the play.
"The stage is set.
Willie Loman enters through the front door
dressed in the same clothes he wore when he died.
"Hey, what's going on?
Why are you all looking at me like that?"
"Willy? Is that really you?"
"Yeah, it's me."
"What's going on?"
"Why are you all so surprised to see me?"
Biff shaking his head, "Dad, you're dead. You died."
"What? No, that's not possible.
I just went on a long business trip."
"Dad, you didn't go on a business trip.
You killed yourself because you couldn't pay the bills.
There's something else I need to tell you.
The insurance money never came."
"I'm sorry I failed you all."
Willie looks at his family one last time
and then slowly fades away
as the family is left in shock and disappointment."
I have to say, it demonstrates
to me a pretty compelling understanding of the characters
and is able to bring some lightness
to an otherwise dismal situation.
I'm inclined to give this an A.
[upbeat music]
I think it's pretty fun.
ChatGPT is pretty good at the rules
of the English language, grammar and spelling,
and it's not entirely without something that
at least resembles creativity or sense of humor.
This technology is only growing,
it's not going anywhere,
and I think it's more a matter
of learning how to live with it
rather than prohibiting it.
I mean, anyone who works with teenagers
knows that telling them not to do something
is only opening the door for them
finding new, more creative ways of using it.