Fall 2023 13 PRESIDENT Q+A PERSPECTIVES GURUNG, FERN, SCOTT: COURTESY OF AUTHORS; CHATGPT: PHONLAMAIPHOTO/ADOBE STOCK RETHINKING INTELLIGENCE Q: ARE NEW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS A THREAT OR AN OPPORTUNITY FOR HIGHER EDUCATION? ALAN FERN Professor of Computer Science and AI, College of Engineering The biggest threat to higher ed is the possibility of missing an opportunity to teach students how to leverage AI tools for real-world problem solving. It is easy, but short-sighted, to overreact to perceived threats such as cheating. Educators will quickly learn to adjust their teaching strategies, just as they did when the internet itself emerged. Imagine if the response to the internet had been to block it, rather than treat it as an essential tool. I expect AI tools to play a major role in positively advancing our society; it should be our students who lead the charge. INARA SCOTT Gomo Family Professor and Senior Associate Dean, College of Business Generative AI has evolved to the point where it can effectively complete almost any of our classes. We must ask — at a deep and profound level — what skills students need to operate in a world in which AI is fully integrated into all our lives. The new higher education must prioritize uniquely human skills like critical thinking, empathy, relationship building, teamwork and creative problem solving. Our best hope for the future is that our students learn to challenge the biases and flaws in AI and use it to innovate and act to solve the enormous challenges of our time. CHATGPT OpenAI’s artificial intelligence tool New artificial intelligence tools are a thrilling opportunity for higher education! AI-powered adaptive learning platforms can personalize education. Moreover, AI chatbots and virtual tutors enhance student support 24/7. Analyzing vast data sets, AI enables educational institutions to make datadriven decisions, optimizing the allocation of resources and improving outcomes. AI can also facilitate research breakthroughs by augmenting data analysis and pattern recognition. Let’s seize this extraordinary opportunity to shape the next generation of learners! REGAN A. R. GURUNG Assoc. Vice Provost; Exec. Director, Center for Teaching & Learning Getting aid from AI tools like ChatGPT is not much more or less problematic than getting help from a smart friend unless that help is not allowed (it’s cheating) or precludes learning the task yourself. Guidelines for coping with AI abound, but as we watch technology progress, there’s actually a bigger question: What are the skills and content we want our students to know? Educators can no longer expect students to carry on as they have. Higher education needs to evolve to accommodate the affordances provided by technological advancements. doing that kind of long-term, highrisk, open-question kind of work. Now, the undergraduate question. I believe that undergraduates learn fundamental concepts when they’re taught well in the classroom but also have a way of testing out concepts in actualpractice.That’sthereasonwekeep talking about hands-on education. Textbooks teach you only so much. Any practicing engineer will tell you that if you go out into the world, what you encounter is much, much more complex. Research is one way of throwing the complexity of the world at you so you can begin to understand howto dealwith it.That’s the opportunity that we o" er as a Research 1 university that other university settings don’t offer. That’s the special sauce that you get if you come to Oregon State University. This year we had awards of nearly $472 million. It’s a new record, and at least as importantly,we are growing 20% a year the last several years. I figure that we can easily double the research expenditures. Not easily [laughs] — we will have to work hard — but we can double them. You often talk about “asymmetric advantage.” What does that mean? You’ve got to find the areas that give you special advantage and double down on them.Oryou find adjacenciestobuildon.Forexample,we’vegot a top-notch robotics program. Robotics requires AI. Robotics requires vision research. Robotics could help us with creative approaches to forestry or agriculture. So can we grow in adjacent, but not identical, directions? That’s one way to think about it. When I speak of asymmetric advantage, this is simply recognizing that we want to become far bigger than we are on the research front. Andwith finite resources,we’ve got to pick the things that we can do better than anybody else. THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED FOR CLARITY AND LENGTH.
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