News

With recent developments in large language models, particularly GPT-4 and ChatGPT, the School of Computer Science has been working actively to explore their impacts and implications.

In an article on 21 March 2023 in the Journal, Dr James McDermott (Computer Science), Professor Michael Madden (Computer Science) and Dr Iain MacLabhrainn (CELT) explore how ChatGPT is sweeping academia and ask what should be done.

On 22 March, the School of Computer Science and itag organised an industry-academic AI Forum meetup entitled “ChatGPT – Opportunity or Threat?”. Dr McDermott gave a thought-provoking presentation about ChatGPT, and then there was a discussion panel moderated by Gerry Carty of HPE, with panel members Prof Michael Madden (University of Galway), Ms Fiona Veazey (Fidelity Investments) Dr Natalia Resende (University of Galway) and Dr Maciej Dabrowski (Genesys). This was a well-attended event with a great amount of questions from the audience.

On 27 March, Prof. Michael Madden published an article for The Conversation about how ChatGPT struggles at Wordle, and what that reveals about how large language models work internally: https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-struggles-with-wordle-puzzles-which-says-a-lot-about-how-it-works-201906

This was picked up by a wide number of news websites, including the New York Post on 29 March.

On 29 March, Prof. Madden was interviewed in an Irish Times article about ChatGPT and how it may impact university teaching and learning.

On 31 March, Prof. Madden was interviewed by John Moore of “Moore in the Morning”, Toronto’s most-listened to morning radio show on Newstalk 1010.

‌‌