CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — An artificial chatbot with unlimited data is throwing a curveball at educators nationwide.

New York City Department of Education leaders have banned ChatGPT from their networks and devices. Carolina school districts are adapting as well.

The concern is that students could use the AI chatbot to cheat on papers and assignments.

Union County Public Schools tells Queen City News that it is blocking access to ChatGPT for students.

“I think anytime you take information and put a group of people in a room, you are going to come up with a different result, and every result is correct,” Chief Innovation & Technology Officer for Union County Public Schools Ben Allred said.

This picture taken on January 23, 2023 in Toulouse, southwestern France, shows screens displaying the logos of OpenAI and ChatGPT. – ChatGPT is a conversational artificial intelligence software application developed by OpenAI. (Photo by Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP) (Photo by LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP via Getty Images)

Cabarrus County Schools chose not to block or ban ChatGPT from school devices. Instead, the school district decided to utilize the technology.

“When it first dropped, I threw it on a cabinet agenda and was like, ‘Let’s talk about it.’ And that group was like, ‘What is this and why are we talking to us about it?’ I was like, ‘Don’t worry, you will know why I am talking about it’,” Allred said.

Allred said ChatGPT and AI technology is both fascinating and not consistently accurate. Users say the technology produces dated essays, create inaccurate citations, and gets math problems wrong.

Allred says the unpredictability can allow educators to use it as a critical thinking tool.

“There are really great responses that you can get from ChatGPT, but you then have to think. So, we have to teach people how to think, which is what we do for a living,” Allred said.