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I was traveling recently when my daughter called for help with her algebra homework. Faced with a challenging problem, I wanted to confirm my understanding before guiding hers. As someone studying artificial intelligence in education, I was curious: Could ChatGPT help?
I typed in the problem: “Given the equation y=abx, if b is less than one, what happens to the graph as x gets larger?”
ChatGPT shot back an answer” — “As x increases, the graph tends to approach 0” — though no explanation was included. (I realized I should have asked for one in my initial prompt). The AI’s use of the word “tends” left me feeling unsure of my own comprehension, and I like to deeply understand a math concept before explaining it to another person (in this case, my own kid). So I asked ChatGPT: Why?
The AI spat out an explanation for its solution, but confused and dissatisfied…
