(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Al-Fanar Media).
Artificial intelligence is neither the first nor the last innovative technology to disrupt education. Throughout history, the world has witnessed the emergence of many learning tools and methods that spread, then faded. These include the manual calculator, the electronic calculator, the ink pen, text-correction tools, the whiteboard, and Power Point.
Some of those innovative tools made a sensation and were quickly absorbed everywhere: the Internet, massive open online courses (MOOCs), and flipped classrooms, for example. Artificial intelligence (AI) is currently making a revolution in education, but it too will eventually lose its lustre and become something intuitive, as happened with spreadsheet systems like Excel.
AI, however, unlike previous technologies, is capable of generating texts, articles, images, video clips, and intellectual and creative outputs based on a few simple instructions from the user. This generative capacity has caused a great stir in higher education.
Educators in schools and universities did not fathom such great breakthroughs brought by AI. It became easy to create articles, symbols, images, texts, and other creativity thanks to natural-language processing tools like ChatGPT and image-generating tools like MidJourney.
Over the past decade, AI applications have become increasingly widespread in daily life, including behaviour-change algorithms, photo-tagging features, profiles, and friend suggestions on social media.
“The College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Zayed University, where I teach, adopts a different approach in dealing with the challenges posed by AI. Lecturers benefit from the educational opportunities provided by this technology, which go beyond traditional education models.”
Since some educational institutions were not prepared to face the disruptions caused by AI technologies, they chose to retreat from adopting digital technology and return to traditional teaching methods, in an attempt to block methods of cheating and plagiarism, and address concerns that over-reliance on AI will weaken students intellectually. These responses are weak and too late, and they miss the main point of future AI-based education capabilities.
Efforts to ignore or ban generative AI have arguably had a negative impact, and reflect some academics’ and universities’ fears that they will be replaced by machines in the near future. Here, we must question the role of these professors and traditional university systems in negatively affecting students, intentionally or unintentionally. Brief assessments, such as written examinations, can require students to memorise specific knowledge bodies, ethnic compositions, and ancient facts, as well as to adopt standardised ways of carrying out tasks, which are often far removed from real-world conditions.
A Different Approach
The prominent educational thinker Paulo Freire (1921–1997) discussed such educational mechanisms in evaluating students, stating that teachers deal with education like an oldtime banker, as they “deposit” information, pre-determined answers, and reserves of knowledge, for a very long time.
In turn, the College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Zayed University, where I teach, adopts a different approach in dealing with the challenges posed by AI. Lecturers benefit from the educational opportunities provided by this technology, which go beyond traditional education models.
These lecturers work alongside students to explore and enhance possibilities. The college views AI as a pivotal factor in bringing about tangible change in existing teaching methods, going beyond the prevailing concept of AI as merely an aid to the learning process. The college provides interdisciplinary programs that challenge the old and contradictory concept of technology, and approach it from a practical perspective.
Technology is not a comprehensive solution to all our problems, nor is it a threat to humanity. The college’s specialisations (including social innovation, business transformation, computing systems, and sustainability) allow students to test, experiment, activate, and reimagine the role of AI in learning and everyday life.
For example, some courses in the Bachelor of Science in Social Innovation, such as “Media, Data and Social Innovation”, require students to think about ways to employ AI to address intractable problems, including poverty, pollution and gender inequality.
The Power of AI
The power of AI is based on the advantages of speed and efficiency, and its ability to analyse large data sets beyond human capabilities. These advantages are not limited to using ChatGPT to write articles or answers. Instead, the college provides students with the opportunity to integrate AI into course projects, role-playing, real-world settings, and vital learning events.
Generative AI technologies like ChatGPT and Midjourney help students formulate complex ideas and carry out multi-level tasks, besides promoting their cognitive development, planning, and reframing traditional ways of doing tasks.
In short, AI potentials provide college students with the opportunity to learn innovatively. However, the College of Interdisciplinary Studies also encourages students to explore the drawbacks of AI, including plagiarism, declines in literacy and mental arithmetic, and lack of creativity and emotional engagement, and provides them with opportunities to strategise and find alternatives and ethical actions to address these challenges.
“Generative AI technologies like ChatGPT and Midjourney help students formulate complex ideas and carry out multi-level tasks, besides promoting their cognitive development, planning, and reframing traditional ways of doing tasks.”
This methodology in applying AI is consistent, in some ways, with Jacques Rancière’s idea of eliminating traditional education, which he expressed in his famous 1987 book “Le Maître Ignorant: Cinq Leçons sur l’Émancipation Intellectuelle” (“The Ignorant Schoolteacher: Five Lessons on Mental Liberation”).
Rancière uses the story of the 19th-century educator and thinker Joseph Jacotot to ask teachers to abandon misleading teaching approaches, which include providing students with disconnected and predetermined outcomes. Teachers do not need to know anything (and they might be ignorant), says Rancière, because the important thing is to explore, discuss, and experiment with how knowledge is constructed, seen, felt, tested, and redefined.
Artificial intelligence can provide us with a series of facts and statistics, but it is the learners’ responsibility to learn independently, whatever they want to know, understand and practice, by relying on informed analysis, high ethics, compassion, and emotional engagement. Therefore, everyone has the ability to learn, lead, and innovate, provided the right tools, information, and mind-set are available.
Generative AI also allows us to reduce our reliance on experts, traditional definitions of knowledge, value judgments, or even conventional notions of intellectual liberation. There is no doubt that Jacques Rancière would not have expected teachers to determine the educational scope of AI in the next generation, but he would have encouraged students to engage in dialogue and delve into the intellectual development of this technology.
Zoe Hurley is an assistant professor in the College of Interdisciplinary Studies at at Zayed University, in Dubai. Her research focuses on focuses on visual social media, gender empowerment, and technology-enhanced learning.
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- The Best AI Tools to Help Students with Writing and Research
- Tools for Detecting AI-Assisted Writing and Research
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