'We need to become more AI literate', says Irish expert
Artificial intelligence (AI) learning should go beyond the basics of AI literacy to equip students for the future, according to an Irish expert.
Dr Gearóid Ó Súilleabháin is head of the Department of Technology Enhanced Learning at Munster Technological University (MTU), where he leads the development and management of online and blended programmes, promotes research into the enhancement of teaching and learning through technology, and supports the mainstream use of technology-enhanced learning.
In an interview with BreakingNews.ie, Dr Ó Súilleabháin said AI learning should go beyond the basics to help students get a more complete understanding.
"I think the best we can do is become more AI literate which goes beyond just teaching people how to design the right prompts for these generative AI systems and to help people to kind of understand what these systems are doing, how they're built and some of the ethical issues arising in their use, and in the way that they're now moving towards the mainstream.
"I think that's absolutely critical. We have to go beyond simply giving people instructions and guidelines about how to use this technology. People need to understand where this technology has come from, what's going on in the background.
"I think we need to understand this is just a kind of statistical echo, if you like, of what humans do and it might have the same structure or texture of the kind of responses and products of a human mind."
Dr Ó Súilleabháin said the attitude to AI among university educators is mixed. While some would think students would be more positive about AI, he said they share many of the same concerns.
"How can we prepare our students for a world in which these tools are available and maybe even a world of work where these tools are an important part of how work is conducted and organised? I think a lot of higher education institutes and the sector of education in general are maybe kind of balancing caution and curiosity at the moment.
"It's a mixture. I mean the whole thing reminds me somewhat of when the World Wide Web came about. It was originally developed in the 1990s and a lot of people initially overestimated its short term impact, but perhaps underestimated its long term impact.
"I think that's probably the case with generative AI at the moment. I think a lot of the fears and optimism perhaps around how it's going to change things overestimates how quickly those changes are going to happen.
"But I do think over time there's going to be some significant changes to the way in which we live and work and play and communicate. We're going to have to work towards some kind of future where we begin to do more and more things in tandem with this new technology.
"I think the academic response is maybe spread along that continuum if you like."
Students' fears
He added: "I think they're more mixed than people might realise [students]. They're concerned about this new technology and what it means for their role as students and for our role as as educators. I think they're very concerned about what it means for the future in cases of jobs that are going to disappear or at least certain job roles that are going to be changed dramatically.
"I guess one of the big questions parents have is 'what courses should my son or daughter do that are going to prepare them for this world of AI'?
"What are the old jobs that are going to be challenged?
"It's hard to say what jobs aren't going to be challenged by it [AI]. In many ways, we're maybe witnessing the same kind of change that automation brought to blue collar work many decades ago.
"We may be seeing a similar automation of so-called white collar work or certain professions now."
Detecting the misuse of AI is one area that is a hot topic in education across the board, particularly at third level.
'Arms race'
Dr Ó Súilleabháin said: "It's more difficult to detect and I think it is going to be something of an arms race. Even the tools I would be familiar with have both false positives and false negatives.
"False positives is very problematic in terms of knowing what to do with the results of such a tool that you don't end up accusing somebody unfairly.
"But I think in many cases it might be a bit of a misdiagnosis. What we need to think about is how we assess students and how learning is evidenced and just what it is that we're trying to provide for students... and the future that we're trying to prepare them for.
"So for sure it's a concern and in some cases there are assessments where we shouldn't allow any AI and others where we should allow a certain amount of AI. In others perhaps there are assessments where we should give people free rein.
"We need to work out ways of figuring out what that looks like. In a way that's fair and equitable and makes for a better educational experience.
"And it goes back to an earlier point about preparing students for a world in which these tools are widely used and are going to be increasingly sophisticated and increasingly integrated.
"The way we do everything increasingly won't be a choice whether to use generative AI or not, it will be embedded in our office, in our operating systems, in our smart devices."
In an interview with BreakingNews.ie, Dr Ó Súilleabháin said AI learning should go beyond the basics to help students get a more complete understanding.
Despite the challenges, he feels there are a number of big opportunities when it comes to AI and education.
These include tailoring learning for students with different needs, removing some of the mundane aspects of the role for educators to give them more time with students, and preparing students for how AI will change work.
"I think it's very important with any technology to be proactive... to look at its applications and to see how that aligns with our strategic priorities, at institutional level and nationally as well.
"I would like so see us moving towards thinking about how we can use generative AI as a partner, how we can work with it in tandem.
"I suppose the ideal, that may be overly optimistic, is that generative AI takes away some of the drudge work, the routine work and frees us up to do the more creative things, the more human things.
"In the world of education, it's a people business. It's about relationships. It's about trust. So concentrating on that stuff, providing mentoring and support and encouragement to students. All of that will still fall to those of us who teach and support learners.
"Working out how that new hybrid relationship can best be supported and scaffolded, I think that's essential work to be done."
AI is opening up new possibilities for personalised learning for students.
He added: "In education, I think we need to prepare our users. We need to prepare learners for a world in which humans and machines are working, that the potential here is for AI to augment what humans can do.
"To augment human intelligence in education, that means AI allowing teachers and technology to work closely together, not in competition.
"This will give us a situation where we can support certain yet to be determined routine tasks while freeing up educators and others to focus on what they do best in terms of the mentoring and motivating, and guiding of students.
"AI is opening up new possibilities for personalised learning for students, there are a lot of opportunities I think in terms of greater accessibility.
"So you take students who have particular needs, the ability of the generative AI to take something and provide it in different formats and in different modalities to boost their confidence and understaning.
"I think the key is balance that AI is seen as a tool, not as a teacher, not as something to replace teaching or as something to replace learning.
"It's something that should be there to support human judgement rather than rather than replace it."
Some AI sceptics have argued it should be banned outright in education, but Dr Ó Súilleabháin argued this would be a negative step.
"Banning it would not be technically or operationally feasible, and driving its use underground would not be a positive development because things would then be happening out of sight in a way where we can't provide any guidance or direction.
"Certainly it's a concern that some other countries perhaps are engaging in certain industries more thoughtfully and in a more proactive way with the technology.
"OK, you wouldn't want to see existing inequities, let's say being exacerbated in the way that things develop, so whatever the benefits are they need to be fairly and widely distributed.
"Human judgement is always needed. I mean, for me, we'll always need to be on either side of the technology. If you like, to put it in simple terms, we're the ones creating the inputs, the prompts. We're the ones applying human judgement."
Assessment
Assessment is another area where there is debate on the use of AI. Dr Ó Súilleabháin said it could be useful in ongoing assessment and projects, but added there would always be human judgement necessary.
"I think already with digital learning, we're seeing a blurring of the line between the learning process and the assessment process more and more.
"The students are producing learning evidence, so I think we're moving away from that paradigm where student get ushered into sports halls every summer, and they have to kind of pour their hearts out and get this one shot at showing what they've achieved with learning outcomes.
"I think there's various points at which the the AI can assist with the assessment process from the start. It could be used for formative assessment purposes, so that's where the feedback is more about feeding into the learning process. I think for the higher stakes assessment, you're still going to want the the human in the pilot seat there, as it were. But I mean in the analogy maybe the AI is there as a co-pilot."
