- The global community has witnessed one of the most transformative, exceptional, immeasurable, innovative, and epoch-making evolutions of invention in the form of information technology in the last couple of decades. The digitalization endeavours undertaken by the global leadership from across the world amply demonstrate how much importance is granted to information-technology-enabled solutions/applications. Such has been the dynamic nature of the IT-enabled solutions that some key features like data analytics, machine learning, internet-of-things, and last but not least Artificial Intelligence (AI) have become synonymous with extensive usage. Yes, AI has become the most important tool to have been invented from the stables of information technology.
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- The global community is mesmerized by the speed with which AI has made its presence felt in the last few years. The potency of AI is put to the greatest test in the education sector, big-time metamorphosing the conventional pedagogy into an entirely digital-driven initiative. Revolutionizing the teaching aid like never seen before. Every new invention also carries associated challenges as well. Let’s assess AI’s challenges to traditional education by dropping bits of that tradition. Imagine a scenario when a powerful tool like AI meets the traditional teaching model. Anxiety, friction, and litigation are the usual answers expected. As reported recently, an LLM student at OP Jindal University won a case against the institution for AI-generated plagiarism.
- The student was declared as failed for his work based on an AI-generated one. While his own argument hinged on technicalities around the university’s policies on plagiarism and copyright, such cases and complications are bound to pop up in classrooms and workplaces. As AI models are trained on large datasets, narrow claims of authorship, and attribution are hard to establish. This tech is new and it destabilises certain formats of evaluation, like periodic exams or essays. But there’s no point in being on a collision course with AI. Like search engines and smartphones, AI tools will have to be assimilated and harnessed. Students have every incentive to use AI for shortcuts, to load it with grunt work, use it to polish their prose, and so on.
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- Further, it can be a learning aid to detangle jargon or help those whose imperfect language skills distract from their grasp over a subject. Teachers will have to rethink their idea of academic/workplace integrity. They will have to test students’ mastery of the how’s and whys, not the whats. AI is a burbler that can produce plausible answers. But education is about the mind wrestling with study material. Teachers and students should know it’s easy to game one’s homework, but both self-respect and interest in a subject demand our actual attention. As in any new invention, AI is no different and is a double-edged sword that could be used to protect oneself or destroy others. Indubitably, AI is a great tool to embrace provided the use is proper.
