Schools are banning ChatGPT but an OpenAI exec says the technology is a vital tool to improve learning in classrooms

• OpenAI's CTO shared her thoughts on ChatGPT's place in education in an interview with Time magazine.
• Murati said she believes generative text can offer a "personalized education" to its users.

As schools across the globe express growing concern about the rise of artificial intelligence bots, a ChatGPT executive says the technology can be useful in the classroom.

In an interview with Time magazine, Mira Murati — chief technology officer at OpenAI, the company behind the buzzy AI chatbot ChatGPT — said schools shouldn't rush to ban the technology on their campuses due to concerns over cheating. Instead, Murati said ChatGPT "has the potential to really revolutionize the way we learn," particularly in settings where not everyone has the same learning preferences or abilities.

"With tools like ChatGPT, you can endlessly converse with a model to understand a concept in a way that is catered to your level of understanding," Murati told Time. "It has immense potential to help us with personalized education."

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So far, public school systems in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and more have banned use of the bot due to concerns over plagiarism and cheating.

Still, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman echoed Murati, stating he also believes ChatGPT has a place in schools and considers it a more engaging way to learn. In an interview with StrictlyVC, Altman likened the use of generative text to a calculator and encouraged schools to adapt to its existence.

"I have used it to learn things myself and found it much more compelling than other ways I've learned things in the past," Altman told StrictlyVC. "I would much rather have ChatGPT teach me about something than go read a textbook."

However, Altman asserts it'll be nearly impossible to detect AI plagiarism 100% of the time, and Murati said she isn't surprised that academic honesty has threatened schools as ChatGPT grows in its popularity and capability.

"When you open it up to as many people as possible with different backgrounds and domain expertise, you'll definitely get surprised by the kinds of things that they do with the technology, both on the positive front and on the negative front," Murati said.

Despite many schools placing limitations on AI use, there are educators who agree with Murati and Altman and use generative AI as part of their lesson plans. A digital-media lecturer at the University of Leeds, for example, told Insider she's used AI in her classroom since 2018.

"We're getting our students to critically think about these tools," lecturer Leah Henrickson said.

She continued: "As long as we're focusing on education as outputs, the GPTs and AI will be a threat, but it can't replace the process of problem-solving, which is the real way to learn."