When Lauren started researching the British designer Yinka Ilori for a school project earlier this year, she was able to consult her new study pal: artificial intelligence.
After an hour of scouring Google for information, the 16-year-old pupil asked an AI tool called ChatGPT, in which you input a question and get a generated answer, to write a paragraph about Ilori. It replied with fascinating details about the artist’s life that were new and — she later confirmed — factually correct.
“Some of the things it brought up I hadn’t found anywhere online,” says Lauren, a pupil at Wimbledon High School, a private girl’s school in south London. “I was actually surprised about how it was able to give me information that wasn’t widely available, and a different perspective.”