AI – an opportunity or a threat to the university? The first debate in the AIDE (Artificial Intelligence-Driven Education) series
ChatGPT (and other applications of large language models) are changing the way we do mental work. Businesses are boldly using its potential in dozens of innovative ways, from preparing marketing campaigns to content analysis. Our students are increasingly reaching for it, tempted by the opportunity to generate coherent text in a few seconds, and academics are testing its capabilities in terms of preparing syllabuses or linguistic smoothing of materials. The university must prepare for a revolution in teaching and research.
Peer-reviewed studies on the impact of AI on education are in short supply, and those that have already been published quickly become outdated. In this rapidly developing area, we must rely much more on our own observations, pre-prints, informal experiments, conversations with academic teachers/students, and social science theory. However, we cannot passively observe the dynamic changes caused by AI solutions – we must start a discussion about the possible applications of this technology, the changes it will cause in higher education, the threats it carries and ways to neutralize them. Polish social sciences are well prepared for this debate – they have already experienced an epochal change in the research environment, from authoritarianism to democracy and from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, and they are familiar with studying new processes and transformations. The starting point for this debate will be the first meeting in the AIDE (Artificial Intelligence-Driven Education) series, which will be held on March 14 from 10:00 a.m. to 12.00:44 p.m. at the Faculty of Economic Sciences (ul Długa 50/103) in room AXNUMX. The meeting is organized by DELab UW, the Department of Technological Transformation (Faculty of Economic Sciences), the Department of Digital Sociology (Faculty of Sociology) and the European Union Politics Research Center (Faculty of Law and Administration). The meeting will be opened by Dr. hab. Katarzyna Śledziewska, prof. UW, and Dr. Justyna Godlewska-Szyrkowa – Proxy of the Rector of the University of Warsaw for the Quality of Education. During the meeting, researchers associated with the Faculty of Economic Sciences and DELab UW – Dr. Wojciech Hardy and Łukasz Nawaro: will discuss the operation of solutions such as ChatGPT and Bing chat; will show how these tools cope with tests and exams; they will indicate how they can be used to increase scientific productivity; they will present the possibilities of using ChatGPT in teaching, research, scientific and administrative work. The presentation will be combined with a short discussion: we will try to answer the question of whether and how the academy should change to ensure the highest possible quality of research and teaching in a world dominated by dynamic technological progress. AI can be closed or open, available to a narrow elite or democratic, creating an oligarchy or supporting equality, replacing humans or strengthening their competences. What we make it depends on us.