First off, don't just scan unknown QR codes. You've heard of sketchy websites that give you viruses, right? You shouldn't click on weird links in case they bring you to one of those websites, and the same principle goes for QR codes.

But anyway,

Here's why ChatGPT will fail you.

First off, I'd like to say that I'm not talking about getting caught for plagiarism. That's also a going concern, but you should know that one because of how often lecturers (mine, at least) mention it. If they don't mention it, the down-low is that anything you submit on Canvas is put through TurnItIn, which is a program made to detect plagiarism. As well as finding when you copy-paste sections from articles, it also analyses looking for ChatGPT, and it heavily deducts your mark if it tests positive. Don't flunk because you got busted.

The real reason I'm telling you not to use ChatGPT is this:

It's unreliable, inaccurate, and stupid!

ChatGPT is not a magic box that gives you the right answers. It's a magic box that gives you an answer.

It's known now as an artificial intelligence, but that's a pretty broad term. Here is its more specific function: it is a text predictor. You know the bar above your phone keyboard which suggests what word to use next? Yeah, that's ChatGPT's little brother.

How ChatGPT works is that it takes in a bunch of information and it sees how it's formatted. Then, it spits out a sentence that follows the rules; proper word order, one after the other, so that the sentence reads well. However, what it is not concerned about is whether the information is correct or not. It does not have opinions and cannot convincingly answer essay questions because it doesn't know what a thesis is.

"But what if I just use it to find out the answer to a question, or to make a bibliography?"

You shouldn't. Some of the time, ChatGPT can stumble into the correct answer, but most of the time, it can't. It doesn't ask itself what is correct, it just says words at you.

As for bibliographies, ChatGPT is catastrophically bad at citing sources. It doesn't keep track of

What I do suggest: learn how to Google search. As silly as it sounds, this is a skill which has fallen to the wayside as people are assumed to have it. I won't give a full guide here, but here are a few tricks that I think are the most important.

• Ignore the extra stuff: When you use Google, there are websites and articles, but there are also pop-ups titled "People also ask". These are billed as quick answers to related questions, and they get their information from the websites that come up whenever you search those questions. However, Google doesn't know if those websites are right or not, so these answers aren't always right. Often, they tell you unsourced information from in-credible websites.
• Use the right search engine