The dawn of technology is past, and today we settle into an age of non-stop evolution. From the stone tablet to the smart screen, the latest iteration of invention is rolling forward into our daily lives, most topically with the introduction of Cal State Fullerton’s TitanGPT.
Despite the knee-jerk, we do not have the luxury to shake our wooden clubs at the reality of artificial intelligence lighting the openings of our caves. By now, if you have sedately welcomed the new programs with open arms, you and your self-driving cars are both brave and hubristic.
Nonetheless, as TitanGPT represents a kind of distinct step in accepting AI into education, we must recognize that AI’s inevitable integration is shaped by how we respond to it.
College campuses are the testing ground of new thought. Higher education is the exact place where innovation finds its footing through experimentation and young minds kneading at the possibilities. Though algorithms have long since underwritten our modern digital comforts, we now grapple with its more interactive, intelligent assistance at every turn.
AI is a disruptive technology but so were mobile devices initially, and now you cannot live without them, said Willie Peng, CSUF assistant vice president for Information Technology/Infrastructure services.
“So how can we foresee that in the future?” Peng said. “How do we protect [students]?”
Responsible artificial intelligence in the university requires a preface of understanding how AI processes information: students can get research help, examples on theoretical issues or ask questions to assist with conceptual learning. That all begins with knowing AI’s strengths and weaknesses, where having up-to-date tools helps students stay afloat with the rapidly changing professional landscape.
Matthew Badal, CSUF Chief of Operations and Director of Innovation, highlighted that TitanGPT’s focus is to make the most updated resources accessible and safe for its students.
“We talk about AI as though everybody is familiar with it, but our priority is to make sure we provide resources for students who want to learn,” Badal said. “Make sure we make that readily available for our students so they’re not having to navigate this AI world without a guide.”
Moreover, TitanGPT offers a learning environment that can be trusted, so experimentation can happen within a safe space where your data is protected.
Its knowledge of CSUF aids in choosing classes and finding campus resources; making that kind of aid incredibly accessible with a click, can easily divide tasks for administration, teachers and students.
The biggest issue with AI befalls the anticipatory nature of systems that enforce as much as they predict. Therefore, a potential programmed exacerbation of inequality and rampant abuse by students could arise despite the underdeveloped nature of AI detection. These are valid concerns, but also ones that can be combated as AI is shaped by intentional use.
Choice is up to the user, from using the tool entirely or rather to a certain degree, taking place in your personal life or in the classroom. AI does not need to insinuate itself into the student-teacher relationship, but the university does provide a scaffolding for that with its AI continuum.
CSUF Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Yu Bai’s research project, AI-Driven Personalized Learning System, provides students the opportunity to work with AI science and apply its maturation across disciplines.
Furthermore, classes like an AI ethics course in the philosophy department provide collegiate forums for what sustainable implementation can look like.
“Lots of students are not engaging with AI now. They’ve heard about AI but they don’t know how they can participate in the AI age,” Bai said.
Regardless, whether a film major, communications major or engineering major, students can learn by being part of the development or incorporating it into their daily lives.
How students make decisions regarding AI has a greater significance than just a college habit. The practices that are responding right now to the revolution of intelligent centralized programs are what students need to be developing to be prepared for a post-grad reality.
Reinventing the wheel is, ironically, cyclical. As programming progresses, we must recognize there is a balance of consequence and opportunity. The Internet revolution exploded into a universe of possibilities; if only we could have known how to behave smartly as to how it would commodify, endanger and change how we lived.
“We want everybody, our students, to have that equal opportunity to [be] exposed to it and then learn about it,” Peng said. “So now they know which direction they think that technology should go and be the advocate.”
Misused, AI could be an exposure we are unable to erase, like radiation, a thin layer of distrust of second-hand material and growing contemporary isolation. Accepted, the future of AI can be moldable, not as assuredly apocalyptic or utopian as much as it is what we make of it.
