OpenAI is launching Study Mode, a version of ChatGPT for college students that it promises will act less like a lookup tool and more like a friendly, always-available tutor. It’s part of a wider push by the company to get AI more embedded into classrooms when the new academic year starts in September.
A demonstration for reporters from OpenAI showed what happens when a student asks Study Mode about an academic subject like game theory. The chatbot begins by asking the student how familiar they are with the area, and what they want to know about it. It then attempts to build an exchange, where the pair work methodically toward the answer together. OpenAI says the tool was built after consulting with pedagogy experts from over 40 institutions.
A handful of college students that were part of OpenAI’s testing cohort—hailing from Princeton, Wharton, and the University of Minnesota—shared their positive reviews of Study Mode, saying it did a good job of checking their understanding and adapting to their pace.
The learning approaches that OpenAI has programmed into Study Mode, which are based partially on Socratic methods, appear sound, says Christopher Harris, an educator in New York who has created a curriculum aimed at AI literacy. They might grant educators more confidence in allowing, or even encouraging, their students to use AI. “Professors will see this as working with them in support of learning as opposed to just being a way for students to cheat on assignments,” he says.
But there’s a more ambitious vision behind Study Mode. As demonstrated in OpenAI’s recent partnership with leading teachers’ unions, the company is currently trying to rebrand chatbots as tools for personalized learning rather than cheating. Part of this promise is that AI will act like expensive human tutors that currently only the most well-off students’ families can typically afford.
“We can begin to close the gap between those with access to learning resources and high-quality education and those who have been historically left behind,” says OpenAI’s head of education Leah Belsky.
But the painting of Study Mode as an education equalizer obfuscates one glaring problem. Underneath the hood, Study Mode is not a tool trained exclusively on academic textbooks and approved materials—it’s more like the same old ChatGPT, tuned with a new conversation filter that simply governs how it responds to students, encouraging fewer answers and more explanations.
This AI tutor’s knowledge, therefore, more resembles what you’d get if you hired a human tutor who has read every required textbook, but then also every flawed explanation of the subject ever posted to Reddit, Tumblr, and the farthest reaches of the web. And, because of the way AI works, you can’t expect it to parse right information from wrong.
Professors encouraging their students to use it run the risk of it teaching students to approach problems in the wrong way, or worse, being taught fabricated or false material entirely.
Given this limitation, I asked OpenAI if Study Mode is limited to particular subjects. The company said no—students will be able to use Study Mode to discuss anything they’d normally talk to ChatGPT about.
It’s true that access to human tutors—which for certain subjects can cost upward of $200 an hour—is typically for the elite few. The notion that AI models can spread the benefits of tutoring to the masses holds an allure, is indeed backed up by at least some early research that shows AI models can adapt to individual learning styles and backgrounds.
But this improvement comes with a hidden cost. Tools like Study Mode, at least for now, take a shortcut by using the human-like conversations that large language models offer without fixing their inherent flaws.
OpenAI also acknowledges that this tool won’t prevent a student from simply going back to normal ChatGPT if they’re frustrated and want the answer. “If someone wants to subvert learning, and sort of get answers and take the easier route, that is possible,” Belsky says.
However, one thing going for Study Mode, the students say, is that it’s simply more fun to study with a chatbot that’s always encouraging you along than to stare at a textbook on Bayesian theorem for the hundredth time. “It’s like the reward signal of like, oh, wait, I can learn this small thing,” says Maggie Wang, a student from Princeton who tested it. The tool is free for now, but Praja Tickoo, a student from Wharton, says it wouldn’t have to be for him to use it. “I think it’s absolutely something I would be willing to pay for.”
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