Artificial intelligence tools will revolutionize education like calculators did, but will not supplant learning, ChatGPT's founder Sam Altman told students in Tokyo on Monday, defending the new technology.

"Probably take-home essays are never going to be quite the same again," the OpenAI chief said in remarks at Keio University.

"We have a new tool in education. Sort of like a calculator for words," he said. "And the way we teach people is going to have to change and the way we evaluate students is going to have to change."