Artificial Intelligence in Education: A SWOT Analysis of ChatGPT and Its Impact on Academic Integrity and Research

Abstract

This paper offers a full SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of the ChatGPT system, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) language model, and its potential application in the sphere of education, especially in matters relating to academic integrity and scientific research. The discussion in this study is on how it may actually transform learning: providing personal tutoring, democratizing access, and serving academic writing. It highlights the details in which the model has achieved, with regard to writing human-like text that can be useful in most educational tasks: answering questions, explaining complex subject matter, and even writing essays. The paper shows critical weaknesses and challenges that currently exist in deploying ChatGPT fully into educational settings. These are issues concerning the propagation of bias in training data, its tendency to sometimes produce incorrect and misleading information, and undermining academic integrity by promoting plagiarism and eroding the need for students' critical thinking. In regard to ChatGPT integration within educational frameworks, an opportunity is the development of AI-enhanced curricula and tools that align with the ethical use practice while actively promoting digital literacy. On the other hand, keeping a close look on some of the threats, there are some that include: the erosion of traditional research methodologies and, of course, risks of students getting too dependent on the content generated by AI.