Barely a day goes by without the latest invitation to a seminar on artificial intelligence or some handwaving about how AI could end the world as we know it. AI has already changed the world. Google searches incorporate AI. Most websites you interact with use AI. Even the library has AI-driven virtual helpers. Still, AI has been perfect fodder for futurists and science fiction fans. Recently, Hollywood gave us The Creator, a movie about a near future where AI wreaks havoc. Yes, again. After initially focusing on how students can use AI to cheat, higher education is finally spending more time on how it can use AI for teaching and learning. Yes, the ethical use of AI is important, but there are more important questions for us. Here’s a big one: Does using AI aid learning?
One Response
AI is helping workers and professionals “augment” their intelligence by using AI. What today is called cheating is what professionals will use tomorrow (after college and university) to solve problems and become lifelong learners.
We need to prepare them for that. In the same way that doctors learn and apply new diagnostic methods and treatments using evidence-based medicine, we have to train our students in how to use critical thinking and be able to search for the evidence on which AI is basing the answers it gives us.