New York Professor Says Chat GPT Can Be ‘a Research Assistant’

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - After KGVO News expressed concerns over Open AI Chat GPT with University of Montana Director of Strategic Communications Dave Kuntz that may eventually include guide rails to prevent possible cheating and plagiarism, KGVO reached out to a professor who has been successfully using the hot new technology to help students accomplish their projects.

Diane Gayeski is a Professor of Strategic Communication at Ithaca College’s (New York) Roy H. Park School of Communications.

Ithaca College in New York is Using the New AI Technology as an Important Tool

Professor Gayeski explained that her students are already using Chat GPT as a tool in their classes.

“I'm preparing students to go into the area of corporate communications and corporate learning,” began Professor Gayeski. “These tools are already being employed by professionals in these areas. While it's true that it does take away a lot of the labor that students otherwise would have to put into reading a lot of sources and trying to format a paper or a strategy, we've seen over the years that there are many tools that have enabled students to do things more easily.”

Professor Gayeski sees the new Chat GPT technology as ‘a research assistant’ and those students must still master the fundamentals of whatever subjects they are studying.

“The way that I look at it is it's like a research assistant, in that you still have to know what you're doing,” she said. “So, just because we have a calculator doesn't mean that that calculator makes decisions for us, right? We have to know what numbers to put in and how to interpret the numbers that we get out. It’s the same thing for research projects. We still need to know what kinds of statistical methodologies to use, and how to interpret them.”

Professor Gayeski Uses Chat GPT to Help Produce Content for Stakeholders

Professor Gayeski said one of the projects her students participate in is communicating with stakeholders, and working with a local client to help create a new campaign with a strategic plan.

“I'm requiring that my students each select one stakeholder group and then use chat GPT to prompt it to see what it comes up with as a strategy,” she said. “I'm having my students write down first of all, ‘what did you ask Chat GPT? What did you type in, and what did it give you? So, what did you think of that? And then what was your next prompt to make it a little better?”

Professor Gayeski provided a personal example of how Chat GPT is already working for a member of her own family in the business world.

Professor Gayeski said her Son Uses the Technology on a Daily Basis

“My son does content marketing writing for an agency outside of Philadelphia, and he writes all kinds of consumer information for banks and insurance companies,” she said. His firm is also using Chat GPT, the most advanced version of it, to help them write their first drafts more quickly.”

She said the new AI technology is not only good for creating text but also for graphics and other business and educational uses.

One fact is plain; AI is here to stay.