AI is here to stay. Now what？
With the start of a new academic year, discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) have run rampant amongst students and faculty alike. It may seem AI is taking more of a foothold in everyday lives with every passing moment. In academia this has generated concerns over plagiarism and the impact this technology has had and will continue to have on education. Yet, this past year it seems a point of no return was reached. AI appears to be here to stay. What does that mean for students and professors alike? How should AI be incorporated into the Mt.A ecosystem?
For the purposes of this article, AI refers specifically to language learning models. In simple terms, it is a pattern recognition program that is trained on massive amounts of data, such as web content, texts, books, films, etc. Then, when given a prompt or question, the model generates a response.
When trying to answer the question, ‘is there a space for AI in academia?’ The answers can get quite divisive. After talking with students and professors at Mt.A, a general consensus was drawn. Most of the people interviewed said they would like the use of AI to be regulated. However, there were people who firmly advocated for the incorporation of AI in classrooms and coursework while others were firmly opposed to the idea.
The biggest concerns from students surrounding AI are environmental effects and questioning of the ethics of how AI sources its information. Speaking with Toni Roberts, who has a degree in environmental studies and chemistry, spoke about environmental concerns being overstated. Roberts discusses ethical concerns being called Data Colonization, and how it should take precedence over environmental concerns when it comes to language learning models. However, they emphasize that just because it is overstated, does not mean it is not a concern.
Roberts highlights some of the benefits AI can have in the classroom if implemented adequately. Roberts highlighted how AI may be used to increase course accessibility. While Roberts has worked with AI in their classroom before, they acknowledged the choice of some of his colleagues to not use AI as a part of their teaching methods. Professor Roberts said choosing not to use AI can also serve as an effective teaching approach. When asked about what they wished would be done on campus in regards to artificial intelligence, Roberts said ideally there would be a dedicated department or designated staff member at Mt.A to manage AI use within the University. Furthermore, Roberts told The Argosy there have been discussions regarding AI use within the University, and AI guidelines have begun to be drafted. However, these guidelines have not been discussed yet or approved by the Mt.A senate.
The main sentiment surrounding AI centers on finding ways to implement this new tool appropriately and ethically. As a community, the challenge lies in preserving the important aspects of the learning processes, while also determining how to make responsible use of this new technology.