Hello!Another bonus edition is back About Technology: AIa pop-up newsletter about artificial intelligence, how it works, and how to use it.
Last week we discussed how to turn your chatbot into a life coach. Now let’s move on to an area where many people have been experimenting with AI since last year: education.
Generative AI specializes in language (guessing which word will come next), and I quickly realized that students could use ChatGPT and other chatbots to write essays. This created an awkward situation in many classrooms. After all, it turns out that generative AI is prone to hoaxes, a phenomenon known as “hallucinations,” which makes cheating easier to catch.
But generative AI can also be used as a learning assistant. Some tools can even create highlights for long research papers and answer content questions. Some can create learning aids such as quizzes and flashcards.
There is one caveat to remember. When learning, it is most important that the information is correct. For the most accurate results, AI tools should be instructed to focus on information from trusted sources instead of retrieving data from across the web. We’ll show you how to do that below.
research
Let’s start by looking at one of the most difficult learning tasks: reading and annotating a long paper.some AI tools Humata.AI, read word tune Various plugins within ChatGPT act as research assistants to summarize documents.
I like Humata.AI because it answers questions and shows highlights directly within the source material, so you can double check your accuracy.
I have uploaded a PDF of a scientific research paper on the accuracy of smartwatches in tracking aerobic fitness to the Humata.AI website. Then click the “Ask a question” button and in the study he asked how the Garmin watch performed. Scrolling down to the relevant part of the document that mentions Garmin created a highlight that answered my question.
The most interesting part for me was when I asked the bot if my understanding of the paper was correct. On average, wearables like Garmins and Fitbits tracked cardio fitness fairly accurately, but some people got the results very wrong. “Yes, that’s right,” replied the bot. A summary of the study then follows, listing the page number where this conclusion is found.
study
Generative AI also helps memorize. Any chatbot will generate flashcards or quizzes when you paste the information you are learning, but ChatGPT includes plugins that generate learning aids from certain his web articles and documents, so ChatGPT decided to use
(Only subscribers who have paid $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus can use the plugin. For information on how to use the plugin, previous newsletter. )
I wanted ChatGPT to create flashcards for learning Chinese vocabulary. I installed two plugins to do this. Link Reader directs the bot to use data from specific her websites, and MetaMentor is a plugin that automatically generates flashcards.
I have both plugins selected in the ChatGPT dashboard. Then I wrote the following prompt:
serve as a tutor. I am a native English speaker studying Chinese. Get vocabulary and phrases from this link and create a set of flashcards for each: https://preply.com/en/blog/basic-chinese-words/
After about 5 minutes, the bot returned a link where I could download the flashcards. It was exactly what I was looking for.
Next, I wanted my tutor to give me a quiz. I told her ChatGPT that I was studying for the written exam for my motorcycle license in California. Once again, using the Link Reader plugin, paste the link to the California DMV’s latest motorcycle his handbook (this is an important step, as traffic laws vary from state to state and rules are updated from time to time), I gave a multiple choice quiz.
The bot processed the information in the handbook and created a quiz asking five questions at a time.
Finally, to test my understanding of the subject, I asked ChatGPT a question without multiple-choice answers. The bot adapted accordingly and I passed the quiz.
I wish I had these tools when I was a student. And if I used them as study buddies, I probably would have gotten better grades.
what’s next?
Next week, in the final installment of this how-to newsletter, we’ll apply everything we’ve learned so far to enrich our time with our families.
