John Warner (More than Words) describes a devious writing scam that had not occurred to me.
The goal is to make money on ad revenue and an way to offer reasonable content on topics likely to appeal is to first scrape the content of popular blog authors and then ask an AI tool to rewrite the content in the form of a blog post. Such scammers than post this new content on their own blogs. Because the rewritten posts are unique this is technically not a copyright violation.
I tried this with one of my posts and the new post is at least more attractively formatted than my original and seems a reasonable alternative. The new post appears below.
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The New ChatGPT Study Buddy: Redefining How Students Learn
Artificial intelligence has been gradually weaving itself into the fabric of education, from automated grading tools to personalized learning apps. But the newest iteration of ChatGPT’s Study Buddy signals a major leap forward. Rather than waiting for students to craft the perfect prompt, this reimagined tool creates a structured, conversational learning environment that feels closer to interacting with a real tutor than a chat interface. For educators and students alike, this is a development that deserves a closer look—especially as the new academic year kicks off.
From Prompting to “Preprompting”: Lowering the Barrier to Learning
One of the biggest challenges with generative AI tools has always been the prompt paradox. To get useful responses, you often need to know how to ask the right questions in the first place. The Study Buddy changes that dynamic. Think of it as a preprompted version of ChatGPT—a system that starts the conversation without requiring the learner to engineer detailed instructions.
Instead of saying “Write me an overview of Metacognition,” the student enters a simple scenario, such as “I’m studying Cognitive Psychology and want help preparing for an exam.” The Study Buddy then guides the session, offering a range of possible directions: Do you want a summary? Practice questions? Connections to theories? Even ideas for mini-experiments?
This puts the focus on learning itself rather than on fighting with command syntax. It mimics the way a tutor listens first, then suggests possible learning activities.
Multiple Entry Points for Different Needs
Students can access the Study Buddy in two ways:
- Directly from a dedicated Study Guide page.
- From ChatGPT’s main interface by selecting the “Study and Learn” tool.
This flexibility allows for different workflows. Some students may want focused study coaching, while others may want to blend it with broader ChatGPT tasks like brainstorming essay ideas or getting writing feedback. Educators can also experiment with both paths to understand how their students might most naturally approach it.
Building Context Through Interaction
One of the tool’s subtle but powerful features is its ability to track and leverage the history of the conversation. If students allow the system to remember interactions, it can gradually assemble a profile of what they know—and, more importantly, what they don’t. Over time, this contextual learning creates a progressively sharper tutoring experience.
Of course, there are challenges here. As the blog author notes, simulating the “new student” experience didn’t always work as intended because ChatGPT tried to reason with stored context. But in a real classroom, where individual learner growth matters, this persistence is potentially transformative.
How Study Buddy Supports Active Learning
The blog post describes a test run where the author asked about Information Processing Theory and Metacognition—two classic topics in Cognitive Psychology. What stood out wasn’t just the quality of the explanations, but the way the AI followed up with next-step options.
For example:
- “Would you like to try answering a few practice questions?”
- “Do you want to dig deeper into a specific theory?”
- “Would you like to run a mini-experiment to test your understanding?
That last suggestion is especially intriguing. The system proposed a simple experiment related to metacognitive accuracy—the gap between what learners expect to score and how they actually perform. The author noted that this was strikingly similar to research he had once conducted with students, where learners wagered points on how confident they were in their answers.
Even without complex lab setups, students could use the AI-generated experiment to reflect on their own study habits and calibration skills. This isn’t just rote memorization support; it’s fostering metacognitive awareness, one of the hallmarks of advanced learning.
Embracing Unpredictability as a Learning Feature
As anyone who has used ChatGPT knows, responses can vary—even when prompts are nearly identical. Some educators fear this unpredictability. But as the blog points out, it can actually be a teaching moment. If a student notices an inconsistency, they can challenge the AI directly.
This kind of “arguing with the tutor” isn’t a bug; it’s a chance to sharpen critical thinking. When learners push back on an AI’s explanation, they practice defending their position, re-examining evidence, and articulating counterarguments—all valuable intellectual skills that transcend specific course content.
Why Educators Should Experiment Now
The Study Buddy is available even in ChatGPT’s free version, making it widely accessible. That alone removes a major barrier to entry. But more importantly, it offers a safe sandbox for teachers to experiment with how these tools might complement their existing practice.
Here are some ways educators could start exploring:
- Classroom simulation: Pretend you are a student in your own course and see how ChatGPT responds.
- Topic-specific trials: Plug in subjects where students traditionally struggle and evaluate the clarity of explanations.
- Critical challenges: Intentionally dispute answers to test whether the system can
- refine its reasoning.
Even a short experiment can show teachers how this tool aligns—or conflicts—with their teaching style.
Final Thoughts: A Study Buddy, Not a Replacement
It’s tempting to see tools like the ChatGPT Study Buddy as the beginning of the end for traditional tutoring. But that’s the wrong lens. What’s emerging is not a replacement, but an augmentative study companion.
Its greatest strength lies in providing structured yet flexible guidance, reducing the friction of figuring out how to ask for help. Used thoughtfully, it doesn’t diminish the role of teachers or tutors—it amplifies learning outside the classroom, giving students a way to practice, reflect, and engage more deeply with material at their own pace.
As the school year begins, educators who take the time to play with the Study Buddy themselves will gain insights on how students might use (or misuse) it. The earlier we start these conversations, the better positioned we’ll be to shape an AI-enhanced learning environment that prioritizes curiosity, critical thinking, and metacognitive growth.
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There really seem not defenses against this scam if you post content to the open web. If this concerns you, and Warner claims it will become very common I can come up with counter measures that are unlikely to appeal to many.
- For readers, encourage a return to the use of RSS readers. With an RSS reader, the reader selects writers he/she wants to follow and uses to provide access to content from these sites.
- For the writer, place your content behind a pay wall. Those who pay for access can scrape content (this would be a problem with Medium because for $5 a month, you can access all content and less so with Substack as you pay for access to individual authors), but for those who pay the subscription fee at least you know who wrote the content.