Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development is apologizing after students learned the school used ChatGPT to write a campus email about this month’s mass shooting at Michigan State University.
Vanderbilt’s Feb. 16 email, signed by two administrators, urged faculty, students and staff to “come together as a community” to promote “a safe and inclusive environment for all.” He noted in small print at the bottom that the message was a “paraphrase of OpenAI’s GPT Chat AI language model.”
“There’s a sick, twisted irony about having a computer write your message about community and togetherness, because you can’t be bothered to think about it yourself,” Laith Kayat, an elder whose sister attends, told Vanderbilt Hustler, Michigan State. Three students were killed in the Feb. 13 shooting at Michigan State and five were injured. The shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The AI-assisted email was sent by Vanderbilt Peabody’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, according to The Tennessean. The day before, Vanderbilt Provost GL Black made a candid statement that contrasted sharply with the antiseptic tone of the ChatGPT email.
Nicole Joseph, a Peabody associate director who co-signed the email, apologized and left the equity, diversity and inclusion program while Vanderbilt investigates what led to the message, Hustler reported. The student newspaper was the first to report on the email, which did not list resources available to students struggling to cope with the mass shooting on campus.
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“While we believe in the message and inclusiveness expressed through email, using ChatGPT to generate communications on behalf of our community during a time of grief and in response to tragedy goes against the core values of Peabody College,” he wrote Joseph. in a statement…
Camilla Benbow, principal of Peabody College, offered “a heartfelt apology to everyone who deserved better from us and didn’t get it,” according to ABC News.
“I am personally saddened by the loss of life and injuries in the state of Michigan that I know have affected members of our own community,” Benbow added. She complained that her faculty “missed the crucial need for personal connection and empathy in a time of tragedy.”
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Vanderbilt student Samuel Lu criticized school officials for not “taking the time to put their genuine thoughts and feelings into words.”
“In times of tragedies like this, we need more, not less, humanity,” Lu told the school newspaper.
If you or someone you know needs help, call 988 or 1-800-273-8255 for National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also get SMS support by visiting suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat. Outside the US please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.
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