Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom

ChatGPT is a specific chatbot built as an online assistant that can talk back-and-forth with a user.  Its creator, OpenAI, described ChatGPT in 2022 by saying, "We have trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way.  The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests." (see footnote 1, below)

GPT-4 was a newer version of ChatGPT, put out by OpenAI in 2023. 

GPT 4o was a newer version of ChatGPT, released in May 2024. OpenAI, its creator, says it was created to "reason" across audio, video, and text in real-time. (see footnote 5, below) 

GPT-5 is the newest version and it launched on August 7, 2025.  It is the default for all users now.

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One important thing to note when trying to understand ChatGPT and all its iterations is that it does not understand what it is composing.  Instead, the chatbot guesses the most likely word to follow the previous word, and the most likely word after that, and so on. 

Warner (2022) describes the inner workings of these AI tools in layman's terms, saying:

"It’s important to understand what ChatGPT is, as well as what it can do. ChatGPT is a Large Language Model (LLM) that is trained on a set of data to respond to questions in natural language. The algorithm does not “know” anything. All it can do is assemble patterns according to other patterns it has seen when prompted by a request. It is not programmed with the rules of grammar. It does not sort, or evaluate the content. It does not “read”; it does not write ... You give it a prompt and it responds with a bunch of words that may or may not be responsive and accurate to the prompt, but which will be written in fluent English syntax." (see footnote 2, below)

Footnotes:

1.OpenAI, 2022, subtitle

2. Warner, 2022, para. 10

5. PureAI, John Waters, 2025, para. 1