Faceless Adversary, Feckless Colleague: The Many Sides of ChatGPT

Although CS educators have studied the potential of generative AI for years, the release of ChatGPT in late 2022 sparked a wave of uncertainty and anxiety. With students arriving at university already experienced with using ChatGPT for work across the academic spectrum, educators were under pressure to somehow address the presence of this new resource in their classroom. This article describes both the "climate of fear" surrounding ChatGPT's impacts on education and an attempt by the authors to induct ChatGPT as a colleague instead of an adversary. While creating a video series where we used ChatGPT to generate practice exercises for CS1 and CS2, we found it to be patient, charismatic and friendly, but also sometimes obstinate, misinformed, stubborn and confused; in other words, it was surprisingly human.