ChatGPT is an artificial-intelligence powered chatbot that has taken the world by storm.Using information scraped from the web, ChatGPT can draw conclusions, create novel essays, and even run computer programs.ChatGPT has broken the record for quickest adoption of a technology, surpassing 1 million users in 5 days.

Why ChatGPT will make us Smarter

The rise of the internet and now a highly effective chatbot has led many to question the value of memorization.Perhaps students could be taught critical thinking lessons in school instead of being taught to memorize facts and figures, but this is a misconception.

The End Of Memorization?

People must have accessible facts in order to think. Remembering is the foundational level of Bloom’s taxonomy of learning (pictured above). Facts must be accessed in order to perform higher level tasks like analyzing, evaluating or creating.(Source: Education Week)

Remembering Facts Is Foundational

The human brain stores every fact one knows, mostly in the hippocampus region. It is unknown exactly how facts are physically stored, but brain imaging studies (fMRI) show increased blood flow to the hippocampus region in memorization tasks.(Image source: Wikipedia)

Remembering = Accessing Facts From Memory  

The internet, books, notes, or any record of facts serve as extensions of the human hippocampus.One only needs to store the fact of where to look for information to satisfy the “remembering” tier of Bloom’s taxonomy (e.g. knowing what keywords to Google to access information about a desired subject).

Internet, Books, Notes As Extensions Of The Hippocampus

<ol><li>Delivers astoundingly specific facts in an instant (with few limitations around its bias, accuracy, and ability to deliver current events).</li><li>Can handle more complex requests than Google or any other search engine to date.</li><li>Can deliver responses in infinitely many modalities such as a specific writing styles (it famously has a great Donald Trump impression), tabular format, coding languages, and more.</li><li>Is free and open to all.</li></ol>

Strengths Of ChatGPt

<ol><li> The human hippocampus has its best companion yet—ChatGPT is lightning fast, specific, and (with few exceptions) accurate.</li><li>ChatGPT does higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, allowing humans to ascend the taxonomy more rapidly.</li><li>Humans will still need to remember facts, but with much less specificity (e.g. remembering where to look for resources, best search terms to get optimal results, etc.). </li></ol>

What ChatGPT Means For Learning

Humans have their best second brain yet. It will not replace the unique spark that every being brings to the planet, but it will allow those sparks to burn brighter.

Key Takeaways

As a former educator and lifelong learner, I’ve had some fun with ChatGPT. Here is why I think it is for the betterment of our collective intelligence. 

Why ChatGPT will make us smarter

Katherine Mead