From The Vanderbilt Hustler: Peabody EDI Office responds to MSU shooting with email written using ChatGPT
A note at the bottom of a Feb. 16 email from the Peabody Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion regarding the recent shooting at Michigan State University stated that the message had been written using ChatGPT, an AI text generator.
Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Nicole Joseph sent a follow-up, apology email to the Peabody community on Feb. 17 at 6:30 p.m. CST. She stated using ChatGPT to write the initial email was “poor judgment.”
“While we believe in the message of inclusivity expressed in the email, using ChatGPT to generate communications on behalf of our community in a time of sorrow and in response to a tragedy contradicts the values that characterize Peabody College,” the follow-up email reads. “As with all new technologies that affect higher education, this moment gives us all an opportunity to reflect on what we know and what we still must learn about AI.”
This strikes me as something that is seen as bad just because of various social assumptions that, well, the DEI department *OUGHT* to have been aware of prior to sending the email but they did something that *EVERYBODY* is going to be doing in a decade.
They’re just ahead of the curve.
You use Chat to write the first draft, or maybe 4 first drafts, then you edit.
No different to me fishing a resume out of the trash at the College Computer Lab to help me make my own… nowdays I’d look online for the first draft.
Yeah, I get that it’s novel but the only (very minor) sin here is not taking out that text — individuals and orgs use templates and samples all the time. This is about as bad as accidently leaving the template name at the bottom of the doc.
Let’s say that they had taken out the text (I agree: Leaving it in was absolutely boneheaded).
Email gets sent.
One of the lesser lights in the office starts talking at the bar about how Nicole, Hasina, and Chenxi used ChatGPT to write it and they’re talking about this in earshot of a reporter from The Hustler.
There’s still a scandal.
Maybe there *is*, but I’m saying there *shouldn’t be*, or at least no more than if the reporter overheard that they took some other letter from two years ago and made a few context-specific changes.
There’s the “outrage that the admins didn’t bother writing a personal letter and feeling this”
There’s also the “outrage that these events are so generic that a computer can write a letter that hits the usual selling points”.
The AI can fake outrage. I’m surprised Chat didn’t mention how it can never happen again.
Precisely.
The Daily Mail is now reporting that: