“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” — Albert Einstein
AI’s upsetting the status quo, raising concern about intellectual property, legal matters, ethical usage – and that’s only the tip of the virtual iceberg. It’s no surprise the nation’s educational institutions are having a tough time figuring out how the role AI should (or shouldn’t) play in academia.
Tyler Austin Harper of The Atlantic recently returned to his Alma Mater, Haverford College in Philadelphia, to investigate AI’s presence on campus. He refers to AI as “the ultimate piece of cheating technology,” and expected to see its ghastly effect everywhere.
What he saw surprised him. Haverford is a Quaker institution which stresses — among other values — honesty; almost every student he spoke to directly or indirectly mentioned the College’s code of honor. Instances of cheating with AI rarely occur.
Harper found a similar code of honor at Bryn Mawr.
Haverford and Bryn Mawr are small, well-heeled schools. As Harper points out, if you’ve got a well-staffed writing center for students, you don’t need AI. However, financial resources are not the only factors involved in the decision to adopt or reject AI. To what extent is a college or university’s code of honor ingrained in its culture? Is it authentic, or is it simply a superficial measure intended to bolster its reputation?
How long can a code of honor remain intact when the essence of education is undermined, reducing teaching from a noble vocation to just another low-paying gig economy job?
Confusion about how and when and why college students should use AI is widespread. Ashley Mowreader of Inside Higher Ed shares some figures drawn from IHE’s annual Student Voice survey: Only 16 percent of Student Voice respondents…said they knew when to use AI because their college or university had published a policy on appropriate use cases for generative AI for coursework…81 percent of college presidents, in early 2024, reported that they had yet to publish a policy governing the use of AI including in teaching and research…”
It’s easy to see the ways in which AI has thrown students, faculty, and administrators for a loop. Still, the college experience itself still plays a vital role in American life.
Michael Tadasco, Visiting Fellow at the James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence at San Diego State University and AI Writer/Advisor, argues that AI won’t replace the essential need for colleges. Tadasco quotes Albert Einstein: “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” In other words, we may forget facts, but not the process of analyzing them.
Colleges also provide “connections that matter, and you will learn and grow from each of them.”
Tadasco identifies another technology that poses a greater threat to intellectual engagement: our phones. Turn it off in class and look and listen and respond to what’s going on with your entire non-distracted self. In the quest to avoid being bored, phone users of all ages are destroying boredom’s valuable byproduct: daydreaming. It gives us the opportunity to make discoveries, evaluate situations, leap from one idea to another. AI? Tadasco’s advice: “Use it as a tool and be the best human you can be.”
