Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, generative AI chatbots (GenAI) have gained popularity, raising concerns about their impact on various sectors, including education. This study investigated...Show moreSince the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, generative AI chatbots (GenAI) have gained popularity, raising concerns about their impact on various sectors, including education. This study investigated university students’ perceptions and concerns regarding the technology applied to educational purposes. Ninety-six students from Dutch higher education institutions, primarily female (71%), aged 18 to 24 (78%), and studying in the field of Behaviour and Society (60%), participated in the study by completing an online survey to reveal if and how they used GenAI chatbots for their assignments. Results showed that 84% of the participants that knew the tool used them for their assignments, with a mean frequency of use around several times a week, while 8% declared using the chatbots at least once a day. Students generally agreed that GenAI chatbots are useful for university tasks, especially associating the tool with an increase in productivity. Students’ main concerns were the risk to honest and ethical behavior, doubt about the reliability of generated content and plagiarism. The level of concern with potential negative effects of GenAI chatbots was negatively correlated with frequency of use. Students’ attitudes and concerns highlight the need for institutional guidelines to help them use the technology fairly and critically. Guidance could enable the use of GenAI chatbots to enhance productivity in school tasks while preventing issues related to academic integrity and security.Show less
The ever-new emerging technological possibilities provide public authorities with new opportunities to improve service provision and interaction with citizens and optimise their administrative...Show moreThe ever-new emerging technological possibilities provide public authorities with new opportunities to improve service provision and interaction with citizens and optimise their administrative processes. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies can support public administrations and especially citizen service offices on this journey. Citizen service offices are the local governments' point of contact for citizens’ service provision in Germany. To improve service provision and interaction between the public institutions and citizens, AI-based chatbots have found their ways into citizens service offices. However, this process is certainly not without challenges. Barriers to interoperability refer to challenges that can impact the administrative ability to collaborate across departments and agencies to provide seamless online services to citizens. Regarding the adoption of AI-based chatbots, barriers to interoperability are especially relevant as chatbots need to be able to obtain data from different departments. This study aimed to examine to what extent barriers to interoperability impact the adoption of AI-based chatbots in German citizen service offices. This question has been explored through semi-structured expert interviews conducted with representatives of the German cities Berlin, Hamburg, Heidenheim an der Brenz, and Munich. The results suggest that political and organisational barriers are impacting the adoption of AI-based chatbots greatly. Challenges have been reported but mostly only by one, or a maximum of two, participants and most of these barriers have been overcome in the early stages of the adoption. Legal and regulatory, as well as technological barriers to interoperability, on the other hand, were found to be the most impacting ones regarding the AI-based chatbot adoption in German citizen service offices.Show less
