Hello!We’re back with another bonus edition Technical aspects: artificial intelligencea pop-up newsletter that introduces you to artificial intelligence, how it works, and how to use it.
Last week, I discussed how to turn a chatbot into a life coach. Let’s now turn to an area where many have been experimenting with artificial intelligence since last year: education.
Generative AI’s specialty is language—guessing which word is next—and students quickly realized they could use ChatGPT and other chatbots to write essays. This creates an awkward situation in many classrooms. It turns out that cheating by generative AI is easy to spot because it can easily make things up, a phenomenon known as “hallucination.”
But generative AI can also be used as a learning assistant. Some tools are highlighted in long research papers and even answer questions about the material. Others assemble study aids such as quizzes and flashcards.
One caveat to keep in mind: when learning, correct information is critical, and for the most accurate results, you should instruct your AI tools to focus on information from trusted sources rather than pulling data from the web. I’ll describe how to do this below.
Research
First, let’s explore one of the toughest learning tasks: reading and annotating long papers.Some artificial intelligence tools, such as Humata artificial intelligence, spelling And various plugins inside ChatGPT, acting as research assistants, summarizing the documentation for you.
I prefer Humata.AI because it answers your questions and displays highlights directly in the source material, which allows you to double-check accuracy.
On the Humata.AI website, I uploaded a PDF of a scientific research paper on the accuracy of smartwatches in tracking aerobic fitness. Then I hit the “Ask” button and asked it how the Garmin watch performed in the study. It scrolls down to the relevant part of the documentation that mentions Garmin, highlights it and answers my question.
What was most interesting to me was when I asked the robot if I understood the paper correctly – on average, wearables like Garmins and Fitbits can track cardio fairly accurately, but some people’s results Very wrong. “Yes, you’re right,” the robot replied. A summary of the study follows, listing the page numbers where this conclusion is mentioned.
learning
Generative AI can also help with rote learning. Any chatbot will generate flashcards or quizzes if you paste in information you’re studying, but I decided to use ChatGPT because it includes plugins that can generate study aids pulled from specific web articles or documents.
(Addons are only available to subscribers who pay $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus. We explain how to use them previous newsletter.)
I want ChatGPT to create flashcards for me to learn Chinese vocabulary. To do this, I installed two plugins: Link Reader (which lets me tell the bot to use data from a specific website) and MetaMentor (a plugin that automatically generates flashcards).
In the ChatGPT dashboard, I selected these two plugins. Then, I wrote this hint:
Serve as a mentor. My mother tongue is English and I am learning Chinese. Get the vocabulary words and phrases from this link and create a set of flashcards for each word and phrase: https://preply.com/en/blog/basic-chinese-words/
After about five minutes, the bot responded with a link where I could download the flashcards. They were exactly what I asked for.
Next, I want my tutor to test me. I told ChatGPT that I was preparing for the written test for my California motorcycle license. Again, using the link reader plugin, I pasted a link to the latest motorcycle manual from the California DMV (this is an important step, as traffic laws vary from state to state, and the rules are updated occasionally) and asked for a multiple choice quiz .
The bot processed the information in the manual and generated a quiz, asking me five questions at a time.
Finally, to test my grasp of the topic, I instructed ChatGPT to ask me questions without providing multiple-choice answers. The bot adjusted accordingly and I got good marks on the quiz.
When I am in school, I would love to have these tools. You may get better grades by studying with them.
What’s next?
Next week, in the final installment of this guide newsletter, we’ll apply everything we’ve learned to enrich the time we spend with our families.
