The short (~10 min) video below provides an overview of some key issues surrounding AI in education and is helpful introduction to the content covered in this module.

A Brief Introduction to AI

In the video above, Lilach Mollick characterizes AI as “ubiquitous,” “undetectable,” and “transformative.” It’s ubiquitous in that access to extremely powerful AI models is now widespread, undetectable in that it’s often challenging to determine when someone has used AI to create or modify content, and transformative in that it has the potential to enhance human capabilities, leading to innovation across numerous fields.

Prior to the last few years, AI use was largely confined to predicting “data based on past behavior” and it struggled with the nuances of human language. Then, in 2017, a breakthrough in the field of AI resulted in the development of large language models (e.g., Murgia et al., 2023; Toews, 2023), which led to the creation of ChatGPT and other commonly used AI tools that can generate new text as well as images, videos, and audio. We refer to these tools that can generate new content as generative AI.

Generative AI operates by predicting subsequent words or word fragments through a training process that uses the vast amount of information on the internet. This process constructs a sophisticated model that detects complex word associations and language patterns. For a deeper understanding of this process, consider exploring A Very Gentle Introduction to Large Language Models without the Hype.

Generative AI tools are powerful and versatile with widespread applications and, although they create immense opportunity, they also bring significant challenges. Specifically, there are issues related to the copyrighted material used to train AI, the societal biases reflected in its output, data mining and privacy concerns, environmental impacts, and ease of data manipulation and propagation of false information using AI tools. In addition to those challenges, there are, of course, critical questions related to AI use in an educational context, such as if and when AI use is appropriate and ethical, citation of AI-generated content, development and communication of course AI policies, and there are many others. Through this module we hope to address some of these questions and concerns at a basic level and provide additional resources for further exploration.

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