ChatGPT clears top business school’s MBA exam: ‘Amazing job at…’

ChatGPT’s popularity is spreading like wildfire in the developed world, with even children using it to do their homework. (Image Courtesy: Nurphoto via Getty Images)

By now, the world knows the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT can do it all--  write essays, emails, plays and poetry, and that too in the specific tones and styles, depending on the instructions you feed it.

Turns out it can also clear examinations, though not without some shortcomings.

Recently, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the world's leading business schools, tested how the chatbot would perform in an MBA exam.

Christian Terwiesch asked ChatGPT questions about a core MBA subject -- Operations Management. This is what he found and recorded in a research paper.

His first observation was that ChatGPT did "an amazing job" at questions related to basic operations management and process analysis, including those that were based on case studies.

Terwiesch noted that not only did ChatGPT answer the questions correctly, it provided "excellent" explanations.

Another one of ChatGPT's strong suits is modifying its answers based on human hints.

"In the instances where it initially failed to match the problem with the right solution method, Chat GPT3 was able to correct itself after receiving an

appropriate hint from a human expert," Terwiesch wrote in his paper.

But there were also areas where the chatbot lacked.

Terwiesch noted that sometimes, ChatGPT made "surprising" mistakes in school-level math. "These mistakes can be massive in magnitude," the professor added.

Also, ChatGPT cannot handle more complex questions related to process analysis, he added.

Based on the chatbot's test performance, the professor noted it would have received a B to B- grade.

Discussing the implications of ChatGPT, Terwiesch noted that its impact on the business world could be similar to that of electronic calculators.

"Any automation of the skills taught in our MBA programs could potentially reduce the value of an MBA education," he wrote.

ChatGPT has aroused both fascination and caution the world over.

Academicians are growing wary of it, saying it could be employed by students to cheat on tests. Business leaders, on the other hand, are trying to leverage it as a potential "thought partner" and "co-pilot" at work.