OpenAI offers a free AI training course for instructors

OpenAI and non-profit partner Common Sense Media have created a free training course for teachers aimed at demystifying artificial intelligence and accelerating engineering, the organizations announced Wednesday.

The move comes as OpenAI ramps its attempts to emphasize the positive role of its ChatGPT chatbot in education, which debuted in November 2022 and sparked a generative AI craze, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing apps.

Generative AI, trained on massive amounts of data, may generate entirely new humanlike content, assisting users in writing term papers, doing science homework, and even novels.

ChatGPT’s launch in the middle of the school year caught teachers off guard when they realized it may be used for cheating and plagiarism, resulting in a backlash and school bans.

OpenAI, backed by Microsoft (MSFT.O) and other investors, and valued at $157 billion in its most recent investment round, has developed a dedicated team to promote what it calls the responsible use of AI in education and learning, led by former Coursera CEO Leah Belsky.