ASU faculty share their thoughts on how AI can shape education now and in the future
In recent decades, the emergence of machine learning and neural networks to build artificial intelligence systems that reflect human capabilities has dramatically changed artificial intelligence systems that reflect human capabilities, increasing their adaptability and learning ability. A new era of AI with features has arrived.
Today, AI fingerprints can be found everywhere from voice assistants in the home to advanced research tools in the lab. Education is no exception. In the not too distant future, AI-driven personalized learning platforms will use personal data to tailor content and reshape learning experiences based on each student’s needs.
We spoke with three faculty members at ASU to gain insight into how AI is currently shaping education across universities and beyond.
Speaking from both their unique and shared experiences in academia, three central themes emerged with concrete insights to advance our understanding of AI tools in the classroom.
1. Lead the AI transformation with digital literacy
The promise of generative AI in higher education is compelling. Bring abstract ideas to life through visual aids to enhance teaching and learning. It handles mundane tasks, freeing educators to focus on teaching and the individual needs of their students.
“I think this is a wonderfully exciting time for students, educators, researchers and artists, because we are fundamentally changing fundamental assumptions and ideas about how we interact with each other and our environment. “It needs to be revisited,” he says. Lance Garavi is a professor at the Faculty of Music, Dance and Drama, part of the Herberger Institute of Design Arts.
The challenge, says Garavi, is to ensure that this transformational process is actively guided.
“We need to ask ourselves why we’ve been doing things the same way for decades and perhaps rethink our approach. It’s both exhilarating and unsettling.”
But where do we draw the line?
“There is a problem with the principle of limits, the rules and guidelines that tell you when to stop and how far you should go,” Garavi said. “On the one hand, we have simple things like artificial intelligence like spell checking, and on the other hand we have sophisticated things like ChatGPT, which is a complex conversation because we don’t allow confusion. Because then we are not honest.”
All three faculty emphasized the importance of teaching digital literacy alongside the integration of AI tools. Digital literacy acts as a compass of sorts, guiding users to ensure that AI tools do not inadvertently reinforce prejudices or become channels for fraud and propaganda.
“From the beginning, propaganda has been part of the fabric of our country,” he says. Directed by Letha Hill New Media Innovation and Entrepreneur Lab and Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “But today we see compelling AI-generated visuals with targeted messages.
“AI can make up news stories filled with plausible-sounding stories and fabricated quotes that people tend to believe. Understanding and discerning the authenticity of content is more important than ever. has become.”
2. A Closer Look at Embedded Bias
Faculty also stressed the need for diverse inputs, continuous development, and regular audits to ensure AI tools don’t perpetuate bias, but it’s not that simple. Intelligent learning machines are inherently complex, just like humans.
“What we are currently seeing in generative AI is the offshoot of a whole generation of researchers trying to solve the so-called object recognition problem, the goal of which is to take a picture, detect an object, and give it a name and category. It was giving,” he says. Mr. Pavan Turaga, Director and Professor of the Faculty of Arts, Media and Engineering.
Today’s AI technology is the work of many researchers aimed at teaching computers to recognize and classify content, but when this technology is used to generate images of people, especially if those people are Turaga says the problem arises when it falls into an unpopular category.
To showcase this, Turaga created an image of a “non-binary math teacher in a classroom” on DALL-E, a generative AI system that uses AI technology to generate high-quality digital images from text prompts. I asked you to Turaga, using the they/them pronouns, is not accurate or fair because his AI’s learning examples for this category are limited and may not represent the true diversity of this category. It said no image was generated.
“In the same way that race is not clearly defined in six buckets, humans are always full of buckets. is considered,” Turaga said. “So human traits often ignore the notion that things fit in small buckets. So how do you get past that? That’s the big question.”
3. AI Opportunities and Future Acceleration
So to what extent is generative AI slated to reshape the landscape of higher education?
In the area of content creation, Turaga sees AI not as an imminent threat, but as a tool to keep students competitive.
“Content production will be impacted in a different way than writing programs, for example,” Turaga said. “Our students are actively working on AI tools. Whatever the tools are, we have to be on the cutting edge of content creation, but now it’s AI.”
Hill said there needs to be transparency around the adoption of AI tools, especially attribution.
“It is important that we lead with transparency, and we can achieve that by partially revealing appropriate attribution,” she said. “In projects where we have used generative AI, we say it was created in a way that: mid journeyagain stable diffusion, or whatever the tool, we are outspoken about attribution and sourcing. ”
However, all three faculty acknowledged that AI has the potential to enhance teaching and learning as long as attention is paid to ethical implications.
“We are in an era that is both exhilarating and terrifying. “I think there is real potential to fundamentally change higher education. We need to make sure we are working tirelessly to guide how that change happens.”
Written by Kevin Pirehpour of Enterprise Technologies.
The top image was generated using the generative AI platform MidJourney. Prompt: “Educators envision a future of AI-enhanced universities and societies where technological developments float and swirl in the air.”
