Lately it seems that artificial intelligence (AI) is involved in every other headline I read. On Instagram, artists are fighting back against Meta stealing their data to train its AI, Google recently reduced the presence of its new “AI Overviews” feature after it advised for users to eat glue, and OpenAI recently found itself in some hot water after the voice for its new AI assistant “Sky” bore a striking resemblance to Scarlett Johansson, even after she turned down an offer to collaborate with them.
Personally, I’ve been really on the fence about the use of AI in the workplace. On one hand, being a wary consumer generally makes me want to avoid it, but on the other, I’ve also seen it produce some great results when it’s been used responsibly. In today’s post I’ll be sharing some of my personal thoughts on when the use of AI can be good, bad, and dubious at best in the context of higher education.
I. The Good
Too Much to Do, Too Little Everything
Many of us have found ourselves in situations where we are doing the jobs of two or perhaps even three people. Sometimes that means being asked to be your team’s assessment person when you have no assessment background and no capacity to hire someone who IS well-versed in assessment. Although AI is not a suitable long term solution for replacing skilled labor, if you don’t have the resources to produce quality work outside of your skillset, I see AI as a helpful temporary tool to get the job done.
Revising and Brainstorming
Listen, some of us just need a little help at the beginning or end of a writing process. Whether you just need some additional help rewording your email so it comes off more friendly or less pretentious or you just can’t seem to get the ideas flowing first thing in the morning, limited use of AI in your everyday writing processes is okay in my book.
Doing More of What Matters
In all likelihood, many of us probably have at least one aspect of our job that we wish we could automate. Speaking for myself, I absolutely dread formatting PowerPoint presentations and Word documents. I just find formatting so tedious! From arranging images on slides to making sure the text boxes are all aligned, I could not imagine a greater waste of my time. Having an extra set of (AI) hands to do the tedious parts of your job can give you more time to do the things that really matter.
II. The Bad
Creating Complex Projects
Let’s be honest: unfettered access to the internet makes AI so much better than humans at so many things. But just because AI has so much potential doesn’t mean we should be using it at its fullest all the time. If you’re using AI to create complex projects you don’t have the knowledge to create on your own, consider the long term implications. Let’s say you use AI to create an app from scratch for your RAs to track their intentional interactions. Will you be able to guarantee that it works the way you want it to if you haven’t built and tested it yourself? Will you be able to diagnose and fix issues when they do arise? If you leave your job, are you leaving behind work that the average person who might replace you can easily pick up? If your answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, my recommendation would be to hire the skilled labor needed to undertake such a project or put in the time and effort to become that skilled labor yourself.
A Replacement for Research
At the beginning of this post, I had mentioned how Google’s AI search recommended for users to eat glue. No matter how much faster AI can make your search for information, we aren’t at a place where we can trust that AI is producing reliable results, especially since anyone can write anything on the internet. If you’re looking for information, stick to more reputable human sources, and don’t forget that your institution’s library likely has a whole host of physical and digital resources available to you.
Imitation is NOT Flattery
If you are asking AI to copy a specific person’s art or writing style, just stop. The way I see it, your request can only end up one of two ways. Either your request is unsuccessful, or it is successful because that AI has meticulously studied and learned to replicate the skilled work that it took a human years, if not decades, to master. Regardless of legality, there are some lines that should never be crossed, and using AI as a substitute for a specific person’s labor is one of them.
III. The Dubious
AI as a Learning Opportunity
I’d like to use this point as an opportunity to revisit one of my previous examples. In an earlier point, I had mentioned that using AI to do something like create an app from scratch had negative long-term implications. However, if you use AI as a learning opportunity during the development of your project, asking questions and taking notes throughout the process, I would see that as slightly more acceptable than just letting the AI do all the work. At the end of the day, I still recommend human labor, but if using AI can help you build a skill, take full advantage of that opportunity. Just don’t forget to take its information with a grain of salt.
AI vs. AI, Who Will Win?
As someone who recently reviewed 50+ resumes and cover letters for an open position in my department, it’s become clear to me that job applications are one area where AI usage is becoming more and more prevalent. While AI can be helpful to job applicants who do not have strong English or grammar skills, AI also has a habit of fabricating false qualifications when left to its own devices. If AI is making it easier for unqualified candidates to make it to the first round of interviews, is there a point at which we should use AI to weed out AI-generated content?
Even after writing this I feel I have more questions than I do answers when it comes to the use of AI in the workplace. For every point I wrote, I found myself imagining scenarios in which there were exceptions to my own opinions. At the end of the day, the two main things I consider before using AI are my own sense of morals and the example I’m setting for students. Do I feel a sense of guilt or shame after using AI to help with my work? How would I feel if my students were using AI in the same ways in which I’ve used it? Aside from making small daily tasks a bit easier, I’m not sure that I see myself using AI very much. When it comes to AI in higher education, where do you stand?
Note: This post specifically seeks to explore the ethical use of AI as a consumer. While the ethics of creating AI systems such as chatGPT is an inherently interwoven topic, that is not the goal of this post, nor is it my area of expertise. As consumers of AI, we should always seek to not only act ethically, but also utilize the most ethical product we have access to.
