Friday, February 24, 2023, 1:30-3:00pm
Weiser Hall, 10th floor, 500 Church Street, Ann Arbor
If the headlines are to be believed, higher education is about to face its biggest disruption in history. But will AI tools really “end higher education as we know it,” “revolutionize the classroom,” or something else?
Faculty and others interested in adapting to such technology in the classroom joined our panel of distinguished educators, administrators, and researchers to learn about the principles and functionality of ChatGPT and other large language models, explore the implications of this new technology, discuss what roles AI can and should play in a classroom setting and develop concrete ideas for faculty to adapt to such technology.
Panelists and the audience discussed:
Associate Professor of Communication and Media, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and Faculty Associate, Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research
Dr. Josh Pasek’s research explores how new media and psychological processes shape political attitudes, public opinion, and political behaviors. He moderated the panel and audience discussion as a social scientist who works with new and developing AI methods.
Arthur F Thurnau Professor, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, Professor of Physics, Professor of Astronomy, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and Professor of Education, School of Education
Dr. Tim McKay is a leading voice in the innovation of undergraduate education. On this panel, Tim shared his perspectives on this new technology from his vantage point as a higher-education administrator and professor.
Janice M Jenkins Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, College of Engineering
Dr. Mihalcea is the Director of the U-M AI Lab and an expert in natural language processing, an essential AI method that is used to create ChatGPT and other AI models. She guided the audience to understand large language models and provided an AI researcher’s perspectives on the benefits and harms of AI tools.
As a panelist representing both philosophy and linguistics expertise, Dr. Eric Swanson is perfectly positioned to explore the novel epistemological and ethical challenges arising from machine-generated text.
Dr. Robin Queen is a linguist with expertise in sociolinguistics, language variation, and language change, and many other related topics. Dr. Queen is also a professor of English and Germanic Languages and Literatures, which positions her to discuss the challenges presented by AI text generation tools to the teaching of literary disciplines.
W K Kellogg Professor of Community Information and Professor of Information, School of Information
An expert on human-computer interaction, Dr. Kentaro Toyama augmented the panel’s discussion with his experience in technology and its implications in a global socio-economic environment.
Edgar F Codd Distinguished University Professor and Bernard A Galler Collegiate Professor; MIDAS Director
Dr. Jagadish contributed his perspectives as the host of the event and MIDAS Director. In his own words: “Data science has so much potential to do good things in so many aspects of life and society. I’m passionate about helping with that transformation and helping Michigan lead in that transformation while at the same time being cognizant of the potential risk and pitfalls. I want to help us get as much of the benefit of data science and AI as we can without suffering the harm they could bring if mismanaged.”
Questions? Get in touch with the MIDAS team!
MIDAS is a unit of the Office of the Vice President for Research
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