Artificial Intelligence and the education environment - Opportunities and challanges

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has become a part of people's daily lives. AI, and especially a tool like ChatGPT, is revolutionizing the way we work and is not just for some tech genius. This is an extremely versatile tool that can benefit people in many ways. It is to expect that it is going to affect every sector, it's just a matter of when. There has been a huge development in this technology in the last few years. Effects can already be felt in many areas, not least in the field of education and in general impact on how the work is carried out within the school environment. Icelandic academics and those who work within the education system express certain concerns regarding the development. They see both opportunities and challenges. According to them, the most important thing is to realize that this is here to stay and will affect the work within the education system in future even more, such as, for example, how assessment of assignments is carried out. In foreign studies the same concerns can be identified, but also opportunities that can be tackled. Opportunities like promoting students' critical thinking and teaching them to use artificial intelligence. The aim of this lecture is to investigate the use of artificial intelligence, especially ChatGPT, among students at a high school in Iceland. To achieve the goal, existing data were examined, some Icelandic and foreign studies were reviewed. Artificial intelligence was investigated in a historical context. The author prepared a questionnaire and presented it to three classes one from each cohort, out of three years in total. From. Results indicate that students are familiar with artificial intelligence and have used ChatGPT mainly for project work and gathering information. Most students wanted training and instruction in using the artificial intelligence, in a proper way.