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March 2023 News Perspective Online

Faculty News: March 2023

Hunt and Dickens Co-Author Op-Ed

Robert Hunt and doctoral student Drew Dickens were co-authors of a Feb. 5 op-ed column in The Dallas Morning News, “ChatGPT isn’t going to make us slaves; uninspired education might.” With the arrival of the new open artificial intelligence chatbot called ChatGPT, many schools are already banning it from classrooms while adjusting assignments and exams to prevent its use. “Though ChatGPT is a master of established, objective facts, it won’t ever be visionary,” they wrote. “It’s clunky when it comes to subjective observations and nuances and will never engage in crucial classroom debates. The great risk is that students too reliant on AI tools may themselves become robotic and be less the spontaneous, spirited humans we wish them to be.” Hunt is director of Global Theological Education at Perkins; Dickens is a doctoral candidate at SMU focusing on the “Effects of Sacred Texts on Generative AI Language Models.” Dallas Morning News subscribers may read the op-ed here.

When the Church Woke

A new book written by the Rev. Dr. William Lawrence, former Perkins Dean, was recently featured in a UM News article entitled “Methodism overdue for becoming ‘woke,’ author says.”  Lawrence, a church historian, wrote about racism with Methodism, past and present, in his new book, When the Church Woke (Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2023.)  Read UMNews’ Q&A with Lawrence about the book here.