Did ChatGPT run over Brazilian education? – 05/21/2023 – Marcos de Vasconcellos

“You can use ChatGPT, but improve the text it makes”, warn teachers in the classroom, now that the artificial intelligence tool has become popular. The fact was reported in private colleges, but it doesn’t take much effort to imagine how the wave reaches elementary and high schools.

It is the tip of the iceberg of the technological revolution. ChatGPT, ChatSonic and Dall-E 2 are just some of the tools that challenge the source of knowledge. What was once a lengthy search in the library’s Barsa encyclopedia became a quick questioning of Mr. Google, and now questions can be asked directly to the machine, which spits out the answer in the requested academic format.

But we are still only talking about student use. The other day, I asked one of these tools for the content of a biology class on mitosis and meiosis, for students in a pre-university course. I stressed that analogies should be made to facilitate understanding. The result was a text that could be read by any teacher during a class. And hardly a student would notice the difference between it and the traditional didactic material.

It is undeniable that the barrier to entry into the curriculum content business has been greatly reduced overnight. Teaching systems, platforms and handouts can now be made at a dizzying speed, with (still) good revision.

But, unlike technology companies, which are already predicting layoffs and new profit margins with artificial intelligence, the education giants in Brazil are sleeping, at least if we take into account the information passed on to shareholders.

In the most recent reference forms, where companies are required to disclose the risks to their business, the term “artificial intelligence” (and its variants) is solemnly ignored by the education giants on the Exchange. Positively, for transparency, the majority demonstrates the notion that they are hostages of technology (generally speaking) to keep the business running.

“We may have difficulty adapting to technological changes that may occur. Teaching may be affected by rapid changes in technology”, says Ânima, whose ANIM3 shares have fallen by half in price in the last 12 months. The Ibovespa, our benchmark, rose 2%.

“Our information technology systems and tools may become obsolete or insufficient as a result of our action or omission”, warns Yduqs. Its YDUQ3 shares had a beautiful increase of 67% this month, with the release of the results for the first quarter of the year. The alert is almost identical to that issued by Cogna, a giant in the sector whose shares have fallen 5.32% this year, while the Ibovespa rose 4%.

At Ser Educacional, the biggest concern in relation to technology concerns possible hacker attacks and invasion of the distance learning platform. Shares of the company (SEER3) are down 54% over the last 12 months.

Does this mean that the education giants are ignoring the threat to their businesses from advancing artificial intelligence tools? Not necessarily, but it shows that they’re putting their investors on hold about the possible effects of this on their business.

Education is far from the only sector to be impacted. A survey by the World Economic Forum pointed out that the world should lose 83 million jobs directly because of AI and create another 69 million related to technology. In sum, 14 million jobs will simply disappear.

Teachers I spoke with are already working to take advantage of access to new technology to change the way they do things. It is strange that the companies that employ them are not making this clear to their partners: the shareholders.

Investors’ uncertainty about companies’ ability to adapt to the new reality is clear in the numbers: all the shares mentioned above are, today, traded at a lower level than at the “rock bottom” of the 2022 crisis. Ibovespa is 65% above it.

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