Determining the implications for education from the hype of AI 

Sonya Van Schaijik Uncategorized

Mā tērā ka aha? What will come of that.

Recently I have been reading and watching a series of articles focused on the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and reading around what this means for education. 

This week I attended an education hub webinar hosted by Nina Hood with Dr Sarah Bickerton and Mandy Henk who shared the recent developments in AI, what they may mean for education, and importantly, what some strategies might be that teachers and schools can use to engage effectively with AI.

Mandy Henk is the chief executive of Tohatoha, a charity that supports New Zealand to become a digital nation with a digitally sophisticated population. 

Sarah Hendrica Bickerton is the research and policy lead at Tohatoha.

To watch the webinar, check out the link on the Education Hub.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most transformative technologies of our time. It is already having a major impact on our lives, and its importance is only going to grow in the years to come.

What is AI?

AI is the field of computer science that deals with the creation of intelligent agents, which are systems that can reason, learn, and act autonomously. AI research has been highly successful in developing effective techniques for solving a wide range of problems, from game playing to medical diagnosis.

Students are already using AI tools that are already integrated into tools.

These include:

  • ChatGPT 
  • Snapchat: My AI
  • Google Bard- Help me write 

How is AI used today?

AI is used in a wide variety of applications today, including:

  • Self-driving cars: AI is used to power the self-driving features in cars, such as lane keeping and adaptive cruise control.
  • Virtual assistants: AI is used to power virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, which can answer questions, control smart home devices, and more.
  • Recommendation systems: AI is used to power recommendation systems on websites like Amazon and Netflix, which suggest products and movies that you might like.
  • Fraud detection: AI is used to detect fraudulent transactions in banking and other industries.
  • Medical diagnosis: AI is used to help doctors diagnose diseases and recommend treatments.

The future of AI

AI is still in its early stages of development, but it has the potential to revolutionise many industries and aspects of our lives. For example, AI could be used to:

  • Develop new drugs and treatments for diseases.
  • Create personalised educational programs for students.
  • Automate tasks in the workplace, freeing up humans to focus on more creative and strategic work.
  • Develop new forms of entertainment and art.

Challenges of AI

While AI has the potential to do a lot of good, there are also some challenges that need to be addressed. For example, it is important to ensure that AI systems are fair and unbiased. It is also important to develop safeguards or guardrails  to prevent AI systems from being used for malicious purposes.

As teachers we can treat things differently such as creating assignments to gear towards the learning using a much more analytical approach. Teachers must understand the ways these tools can help or fabulate. Teachers need to be thinking and focussing on their pedagogy. Teachers need to be teaching about AI and how to use it discerningly.

Some learning can include students fixing 5x sentences that are evidence based.

The limitations 

Student Limitations of using ChatGPT is creating answers without knowledge.

Learners will not have gained the knowledge so no learning has taken place.

Bots cannot perform citations. Bots cannot do maths.

AI should not be used as search engines. Does not use a large language model to answer the question. Do not put students’ work through ChatGPT as it is not as private as it should be. Disciplines that require critical analysis are currently more challenging to be created by a BOT.

Ethical Implications in Schools.

Problematic ethical issues that must be avoided include the way the the data is collated and raised copyright challenges. Plagiarism and cheating is undermined when using AI.

Encouraging AI to form emotional connections is an issue such as ‘My AI’ from Snapchat.

Midjourney using Getty Images with a watermark.

Maybe the AI will lower the scale and target individual artists.

Ethical Concerns, what’s the ethical implications of what I am doing. 

The tools can appear to be authoritative so it is always plausible to fact check AI and the question of bias. Dominant perspectives become the norm and the less dominant perspectives are less likely to occur. Inbuilt biases in society are more likely to be generated.

The more you interact with them, the nuttier the bots become. This is why guardrails are imperative. Propaganda, sexual, racist comments can explode.

Conclusion

AI is a powerful technology with the potential to transform our world. It is important to understand what AI is and how it is used today, so that we can be prepared for the changes that it will bring in the future.

Here are some additional thoughts on the future of AI:

  • AI could lead to the creation of new industries and jobs.
  • AI could help us to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change and poverty.
  • AI could also pose new challenges, such as job displacement and the potential for misuse of AI systems.

It is important to be aware of both the potential benefits and risks of AI, so that we can develop and use this technology in a responsible and ethical way.

Do not use AI uncritically, use it as a prompt rather than as a final product. Finally AI is here and what will come of that in education is really up to us teachers. We cannot ban it, but we can work with it and ensure we teach our students to be discerning in what they read and write.

For people who want to learn more about AI and education, Mandy and Sarah suggested looking up the following people, shared via the Education Hub.

Note to readers: I activated Google Bard on my personal Google account and created this blogpost prompt and then edited around the discussion heard. What was clear to me was the limitation of citations and how multistructural in creation was the outcome. I could take those lists and elaborate more on them but for now this is me checking out how a student might use the large language tools to assist with writing.

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