Canvas: OpenAI's New Essay and Code Writing "Collaborator"

Jointly edit with ChatGPT and ask it to insert teacher comments and then revise based on those comments.

Today, OpenAI release a new tool called canvas that is designed to “help” you write essays in a collaborative manner.

I was going to write an essay on a new debate topic — the wealth tax today — so I thought I’d try this. Currently, it requires a paid subscription to ChatGPT to use, but it will be free for everyone once it comes out of beta testing.

Basically, it writes with me “side-by-side” as a companion. This is what it can do — the italicized abilities are new.

(1) Write a basic essay based on research you upload after you give it a prompt.

(2) Allow you to generally revise based on a general prompt/ask for more detail.

(3) Allow you to insert sections based on specific prompts without changing everything that is already there.

(4) Rewrite arguments under prompt when it does a bad job, and you point that out.

(5) Restart itself if it fails; no re-prompting needed.

(6) Grammar and spell check (substantially improved). Bye-Bye Grammarly?

(7) Add general comments based on tone, clarity, lack of examples, etc. when asked for general feedback on specific parts of the essay. Bye-Bye Grammarly?

(8) Rewrite those sections based on the feedback it gives you once you request that.

(9) Provide comments based you asking it to provide comments similar to what a teacher would provide. Bye-Bye many edtech products?

(10) Revised the essay based on #9 comments after being prompted.

(11) Generative vocabulary words for a grade level.

(12) Rewrite to a specific grade level.

(13) Add spelling errors to trick a teacher into thinking a human wrote it.

(14) Make final corrections it missed.

(15) Allow you to collaboratively edit the text in a joint manner. Basically, you can edit the response it gives and then both you and canvas can jointly edit the paper based on revisions. It’s like you and ChatGPT jointly editing a Google doc!

There are probably more things to be discovered. This is just my first pass — I did all of the above in this video.

It’s probably getting a little strange to be a kid today (other reasons aside). But I guess it’s better us adults just avoid hard conversations with them about this stuff. Is AI the sex ed of education?