Dr. Diana Thomas

AI And Ethics

Graphing calculators, laptops, the internet, Wikipedia, Google, and YouTube have each been met with concern (sometimes fear) and promise. GenAI is the next steep step in that progression. Students now carry in their pockets a tool that can solve problems, write code, explain concepts, critique arguments, and provide a personalized learning experience within seconds. The elephant in the room is:  

What is worth learning when you have GenAI in your pocket? What knowledge, skills, judgment, and ways of thinking must students still develop for themselves? And once we decide, how do we redesign instruction to get them there? 

In this talk, Dr. Thomas will use classroom examples to show how GenAI can shift classroom experiences, engage curiosity, and harness its power to learn. She will also show how the same transformation is occurring in research, including a new human-AI approach to literature reviews that makes the previously impossible, possible. 

We should develop students who know enough to question AI, recognize when it is wrong, and use it to do things they could not have done alone. AI should enhance you. It should not replace you.

 

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