In the past few years, there has been growing curiosity about the use of Artificial Intelligence. New laws are being passed to regulate its public use, including in advertising and cinema.
But what about using Artificial Intelligence in education?
Amin Saleh: There’s a lot of things in education or that education can provide to students that, I don’t think, AI is going to take that away. In terms of having experiences in college or being able to build a network. So, I think it can be very useful for students.
Amin Saleh is a professor in the college of business at LSU Shreveport. He has a very positive outlook on AI use in higher education after using generative AI himself outside of the classroom.
Amin Saleh: I was learning how to bake different cookies and breads, and I used AI to help me get ideas for recipes and modifying recipes.
Dr. Saleh’s research has focused on generative AI. Generative AI takes multiple inputs and comes up with responses based on how it has been trained. Dr. Saleh says generative AI, like ChatGPT or DALL-E, can be very useful in multiple ways.
Amin Saleh: It can be used to enhance communications. If you’re giving a presentation for example, and you’re not sure quite how to phrase your idea, ask it to suggest some ways that you could communicate that idea to other people.
However, Dr. Saleh also points out some of the cons of AI in a professional workplace.
Amin Saleh: It’s generating information, and this information may not always be accurate or correct. And, if you’re using it for professional work, then this could lead you to make a wrong decision or an erroneous decision. So, people who use AI for professional work, they really do need to be experts in their fields so that they can recognize when it is giving them good information.
Dr. Saleh says that it could be beneficial for teachers to utilize AI in classrooms. Since many professors and instructors at universities are often busy outside of teaching, Dr. Saleh thinks AI can help manage time.
Amin Saleh: You know, we have ideas for things we want to do, but it just takes a lot of time and work to implement those ideas– so coming up with a class activity, planning a class activity, for example. So, I can use a tool like ChatGPT to help me come up with a list of questions. So, you know, I think the most exciting part for educators is helping to save time and helping us come up with better ideas about how to be more effective in the classroom.
Since there is not a federal regulation on using AI in higher education, colleges and universities are having to make their own rules. Dr. Saleh says he thinks the decision should be up to the individual educator.
Amin Saleh: I think each instructor in each discipline has their own ideas about how, or what they want to bring out of the students. And sometimes bringing certain skills out requires students to complete tasks in a particular way. So, if I want students to understand how to correctly apply punctuation, then of course, they can use a tool like Grammar.ly, but they wouldn’t really understand the rules of punctuation. But, in another class that’s maybe not focused on English or writing, then maybe an instructor would be okay with students using tools like Grammar.ly or ChatGPT to check their punctuation. Of course with plagiarism and just copying and pasting work from AI–so, that’s another challenge that faculty in universities are responding to in different ways. Some have more strict policies against using AI; some are much more open to it and even embracing it and encouraging students to utilize it. You know, everyone has their own goals, they have their own ideas about what they want to achieve in life, and, so, the purpose of education is really to help support those things. You know, we can use AI to help people realize their ideas, to help give them inspiration. The application to education, I think, is going to have a bigger impact once people have more experience using it for themselves, and that can translate into ideas about how to apply it to the classroom.
This is Alaina Atnip with Red River Radio News.