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The Usage of AI in Higher Education

The Usage of AI in Higher Education

For both educators and students alike, the use of Artificial Intelligence from K-12 into graduate levels has become a staple tool in education. With utility in nearly all aspects of learning, from art history and appreciation to writing and arithmetics, it has quickly anchored itself as a permanent instrument in education. The ethics of its usage, however, remain largely of debate by higher learning institutions, and addressing the issue finitely is proving difficult. 

This is due to the rate of expansion of both the technology of AI itself, and the increasingly new ways it's being implemented in schools and universities. 

Educators are working on all levels trying to keep pace with the technology. Speaking with Casey Ford, English professor and Director of Lamar University’s Writing Center, we were offered insight on the utilization of AI by students and faculty of LU. Ford guides workshops for faculty and students on a variety of subjects, including how to accurately communicate and work with AI, determine factual information from “hallucinations” (a term used for “made up” information that AI will present as true), alongside maintaining ethical standards of its usage.

Ford explained that AI had become “absolute” in learning environments. Students have found application for AI across every subject, but it is most commonly seen used as a writing aid. In the Writing Center, Ford and assistants teach students how to use AI responsibly, placing an emphasis on allowing the AI to help the student learn, but not remove the student’s actual ability to think creatively or critically. “It’s easier than trying to stop them [students] from using it entirely. We have to work with it, and try our best around it.” 

 Noting the shared acknowledgement among faculty on the overwhelming use of AI by students:

What steps are being taken on a higher level to address AI? Are there any major authorities setting ethical boundaries?

“Well, major organizations like MLA, APA, IEEE…[they] make the writing and research rules. We know they’re making addons [for their formats] towards AIs usage and ethics.”

How are you, as educators, handling this together? Is it more of a “ground up” method of tackling the issue?

“Absolutely…in Higher Ed, especially, this happened so fast. We’re just trying to catch up.”

Recognizing its utility as a tutoring aid for varied disciplines of studies, a creative aid, and an organizational/workflow tool, Ford acknowledges the practical desires for AI by teachers and students. “You can’t stop it. It’s worse to ban it - students will use it regardless. We have to educate students, teach them how to use it ethically and effectively, along with integrating the education on environmental cost.” 

In your role, how do you feel, personally, you’re working around AI’s impact on students as writers?

“My whole job is to look at the students' writing, and teach them the beauty in it - tell them they’re doing something right, and good.” 

What are some methods of management being implemented by other professors right now? 

“It’s causing faculty to think about how they’re structuring their classrooms. If they don’t want students to use AI, then they must structure their course around that.”

A good example of this in practice would be Professor Jesse Doiron, of Lamar University. The experience of every classroom is different, and Doiron says he “doesn’t have much of a problem with AI in his class.” Providing an explanation for the contrast between other educators' experiences, he explained that his teaching style did not offer an opportunity for explicit cheating, due to his in-class peer requirements. “You’ve got to depend on the basic integrity of a student wanting to learn.”

Utilizing the honor code and active involvement between students, and allowing them to openly write and critique each other during class time, has offered a “sort of hivemind” amongst the students. Because of this, there is a much higher social expectation to maintain academic integrity between classmates.

Regarding the utility of AI in his own classroom, Doiron emphasized its importance as a tool, and not a replacement for academic work itself. In his coursework, he allows AI with “honest usage”, but maintains that if you trust and respect your students, and “teach them the desire to learn”, then AI may be more manageable of a problem in classrooms.

While classroom and coursework adjustments can be made to combat issues of academic integrity, the acceptance of AI in higher learning leads us to question if this tool comes with too high of a price in changing the way education provides for society.

FACTS ON AI:

The information received from AI is inherently unreliable. AI can pull data from anywhere, and will present the data given without discernment for accuracy. These falsities are referred to as “hallucinations”. The information given can also have explicit bias, and the AI can be programmed to over-represent that bias, as well. This calls into question its effectiveness as a true learning aid.

A global study on 3,200 students from 16 countries, ranging from undergraduate to doctorate students, showed that 86% were using Artificial Intelligence in their schoolwork.

The environmental impact of AI, alongside cryptocurrency and data mining, could equate to 4% of global energy usage by 2026. For reference, that is the current energy usage of the entire country of Japan. 

As well as the base electrical need, cooling the massive data centers that host the hardware for AI requires a large amount of water, via liquid cooling. It’s estimated that just in Microsoft’s data centers, AI consumes between 1.8 to 12 liters of water for each kWh of energy used.

By 2027, the use of AI in the U.S. could make up 0.5 - 0.7% of our annual water withdrawal. (Total water consumed that cannot immediately go back into the water cycle).