Chat GPT is chatting but not as you know it, and a fun tool according to adult ākonga (learners) in Central.

Central Otago REAP and Dunstan High School pupils collaborated to present a free artificial intelligence workshop on Friday afternoon in Alexandra.

Pupils Luke Grant (15), Tom Smale (15), Jimmy Naylor (15) and Ethan Turner (13) together with maths teacher Michelle Blanchard spent close to two hours at Alexandra Community House for the workshop.

Everyone had a chance to try out interacting with chat generative pre-trained transformer (Chat GPT) during the session. 

Chat GPT is a chat bot or language model developed by Open Artificial Intelligence that generates human-like text based on the input it receives.

Central Otago REAP quality assurance and programme development lead Emma McLean introduced the session and led a karakia, whakatauki and her pepeha. 

Emma said she was thrilled to have widespread interest and support for the session from the community.

“I use Chat GPT for idea generation and it’s phenomenal… I’m learning how to use it as a tool, it’s not going away.”

Emma McLean (left) and Tom Smale (15) put Chat GPT up on a screen for participants to take a look at. PHOTO: The Central App 

The pupils all spoke about why they found the technology useful and how they had been introduced to it.

Ethan said he helped his grandparents with technology and being involved in the workshop was an extension of that.

Jean Sims and Ethan Turner (13) asked Chat GPT for a recipe using strange ingredients to see what it came up with. PHOTO: The Central App 

Luke had been using Chat GPT for a few years and it was “incredibly useful” with school projects and homework and many other applications in the real world. 

Phanny Thomas, Luke Grant (15) and Alan Thomas tasked Chat GPT with writing a 200 word story including five items and it took seconds to produce a well written text. 

Tips on how to get the best out of Chat GPT were covered, including talking respectfully to the chatbot, sense checking any answers, checking for bias, being clear and specific with prompts and trusting your gut if anything seemed strange in a response.

Jimmy Naylor (15), Vivien Davidson and Stuart De Jong learned it is important to protect your personal information while using Chat GPT, and keep your data out of conversations. 

Many attendees said they would be more confident with the technology having tested out how it works in a safe supportive environment.

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