AI impacts the study abroad industry: some people lose 10,000 yuan in monthly income, and some people's business lines shrink by 60%
Per reporter: Zheng Yuhang Per editor: Lan Suying
Wang Chaochun, a 26-year-old study abroad clerk, has not "received a job" for several months, and his monthly income in the past study abroad application season was about 15,000 yuan. However, with the development and popularization of AIGC technology, in the past two months, Wang Chaochun can be described as "no harvest".
The reporter of "Daily Economic News" learned that because of the emergence of AI tools such as ChatGPT, not only the income of independent study abroad clerk teachers has been greatly affected, but the business line of study abroad institutions is also constantly eroded.
Zhang Ye, the owner of a study abroad service organization headquartered in London but with branches in many cities in China, told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the business they provide to people studying in the UK such as master's and doctoral applications, thesis editing, and hanging appeals have been affected by ChatGPT, and even some business lines have directly shrunk by more than 60%.
A financing consultant of a private equity financing company involved in the field of education and training admitted to reporters that study abroad documents are a typical industry affected by ChatGPT. If the service organization cannot provide differentiated service value from AI, users are more inclined to use ChatGPT to complete the polishing of the basic text, rather than paying for the help of the agency as before.
GPT models continue to iterate, the performance of natural language understanding and content generation is greatly enhanced, and ChatGPT has kicked off the natural language processing productivity revolution. How should study abroad practitioners "break the game"? Wang Chaochun is still confused after walking around the job market, while Zhang Ye is adhering to the principle of "if you can't beat it, you will join" and are developing an AI platform by himself.
Image source: Visual China - VCG211130066044
Clerical worker: It used to be busy and "crazy", but now no one cares
Wang Chaochun is a freelancer who has been working in the field of writing for three ~ four years. "During the peak season and end of the study abroad application season, you can have more than 10,000 income." But after ChatGPT came out, he suddenly ran out of work.
In February of this year, the news that AI could help academic writing and even directly generate papers spread in circles. After hearing this, Wang Chaochun also tried to write a personal statement of the study abroad application in ChatGPT, and the result shocked him.
"Personal statements are a hurdle for many Chinese students applying to master's and doctoral programs at British and American universities, and because of language skills, Chinese and Western thinking, etc., they often write the same things, and there are many grammatical errors. Therefore, I will find a professional study abroad clerk teacher to help. Wang Chaochun explained to the "Daily Economic News" reporter that ChatGPT itself was "born" from the West, and the personal statement written is very in line with English language habits and is in line with the interests of admissions teachers in British and American schools.
"Generally speaking, before ChatGPT came along, every June, students were nearing the end of the semester, and I was busy until that." Wang Chaochun told reporters that based on the quotation of 800 yuan ~ 1,000 yuan per personal statement, he could earn about 15,000 yuan a month during the application season around Christmas in the past. When he couldn't get busy, he would even "send orders" to other clerical teachers.
"But now it's May, there hasn't been any list yet, and this has been going on for more than two months." Wang Chaochun's words could not hide his anxiety.
The reporter of "Daily Economic News" noticed that not only students' personal statements, papers, but even recommendation letters written by teachers to students can be completed with ChatGPT, and there are even cases of winning top college scholarships.
A professor at Victoria University said he asked ChatGPT to write a letter of recommendation for "outstanding students" and then rearrange the material based on ChatGPT's output, and the student eventually won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge for a letter of recommendation he co-authored with ChatGPT.
Recently, Ian Bogost, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote after interviewing a number of university professors that ChatGPT is simply a productivity tool for professors, and writing letters of recommendation and making course syllabuses can have twice the effect with half the effort.
Study abroad institutions: ChatGPT is too strong, business volume "cut back"
In fact, not only the independent study abroad clerk teachers have been greatly affected, but the business line of the study abroad institution is also constantly eroded.
Zhang Ye, the owner of a study abroad service based in London but with branches in many cities in China, told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that their business of providing applicants in the UK such as master's and doctoral applications, thesis editing (Proofreading), and hanging appeals has been affected by ChatGPT.
Zhang Ye told reporters that the thesis editing business has been most obviously affected, in the past, many students are approaching the end of the semester and graduation, involving the problem of checking the plagiarism of the thesis, or simply want to improve the following writing, change the grammar problems, etc., will find their company, let the professional thesis teacher to improve the quality of the thesis writing. But now, ChatGPT has taken its place.
"For example, if an article with a high repetition rate is thrown into the ChatGPT dialog and then given the rewrite command, it can generate a completely different version of a language organization. For example, if there are many grammatical errors in the article, give the check grammar command, and it can be modified in a short time. Zhang Ye bluntly said that the business volume of this part of the thesis editing was directly cut by more than 60%, not only that, when students sign up for other tutoring courses of the company, the company gave away its thesis editing service, and the students chose not to, but exchanged the service for discounts or class hours.
In terms of application for studying abroad, it mainly involves filling out forms and preparing papers. Zhang Ye told every reporter that after the emergence of ChatGPT, the company's study abroad paperwork business has plummeted by about 40% in recent months. He explained that the best thing about institutional teachers in applying is writing application documents, but now ChatGPT can be completed with high quality, and preliminary consultation and other work can also get accurate and detailed answers from ChatGPT.
"Study abroad documents are a typical industry that has been hit by ChatGPT. AI-generated content is large-scale, high-quality, low-cost and easy-to-use, and if service organizations cannot provide differentiated service value from AI, users are more inclined to use ChatGPT to 'DIY' rather than choose to pay for institutions. A financing consultant of a private equity financing company told reporters.
In his view, industries (study abroad institutions, etc.) that are data-intensive and highly accessible, and whose generated content can be directly used for end-user delivery or downstream further processing, will be the first to be affected by ChatGPT, and the manual work of data collection, processing and structured output may have begun to be replaced.
Image source: Visual China - VCG111421680440
How to break the game?
"GPT models continue to iterate, and the performance of natural language understanding and content generation is greatly enhanced. ChatGPT has kicked off the natural language processing productivity revolution. The aforementioned financing consultant told reporters.
In response to the comprehensive "invasion" of AI, with at least a fixed income mentality, Wang Chaochun has begun to look for jobs everywhere, but he told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that although there are still many positions on the Internet with the signboards of "study abroad copywriter", "clerical teacher" and "clerical consultant", there are few satisfactory treatment, most of them do not have a basic salary, and they can even not sit at work, and their income is all based on their own hard work.
On the institutional side, Zhang Ye bluntly said that at present, the company has no need to recruit full-time clerical teachers and study abroad consultants.
In order to "survive", Zhang Ye's strategy is "since you can't fight, then join". He is developing an AI system in an attempt to find technological breakthroughs to expand his institution's influence among international students.
"AI erases the differentiated value of basic text work, but it cannot replace non-standard services such as strategic guidance and community operation for users' study abroad applications." The aforementioned financing consultant analyzed, "Institutions should first sort out how their services can be empowered by ChatGPT, iterate business strategies simultaneously, and consider whether they can create new products based on ChatGPT based on their own resource endowments and demand scenarios." The segmentation of demand gives rise to opportunities for pendant models and AI products, such as different colleges, regions, majors, and languages, which may have different demands for generated content. Organizations can measure their own data accumulation and advantageous scenarios and train exclusive AI products. ”
Zhang Ye told reporters that he is currently focusing on building a decentralized knowledge payment platform, aiming to break through the limitations of traditional centralized knowledge payment platforms and provide users with a decentralized, secure, efficient and transparent knowledge payment experience. The platform will use artificial intelligence and big data technology to provide users with personalized recommendation and matching services, helping them more easily find knowledge content that suits their needs and interests.
"We are based on the ChatGPT database, and use AIGC technology, applying our own algorithms, so that the model can reach the level of feedback from overseas institutions as much as possible in open use." Zhang Ye further explained that in the future, if students have any needs to study abroad, they can first communicate through this platform, saving a lot of labor costs.
However, according to the reporter, the cost of "joining if you can't beat it" is not low.
Zhang Ye revealed to reporters that to train large-scale language models, high-performance hardware, such as GPUs and TPUs, is required, the higher the performance, the faster the training speed, but the more expensive the price. "Since I was born in technology, the expenditure compared to other models in the industry has been very 'restrained', and it is expected that the R&D and maintenance expenses plus labor costs in the first year will be around £1.31 million, and if the progress is in line with expectations, the second year will start to expand the market, with a budget of nearly £2 million."
Although the initial investment is huge, Zhang Ye still has confidence in the future, he said that at this stage, the company will try to use this platform to consult students, and then adjust the company's business according to the feedback data to adapt to market development.
"The wave of AI will not recede, as small manufacturers and individuals, AI should be a tool to improve efficiency." Even if you work in an industry that is not directly related to AI, you can try to learn and use AI technology to change the way you live and think. Zhang Ye said.