AI can be a danger to students What universities can do

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is trained on enormous bodies of text, video and images to identify patterns.

- SIOUX MCKENNA, NOMPILO TSHUMA

It then creates new texts, videos and images on the basis of this pattern identification. Thanks to machine learning, it improves its ability to do so every time it is used.

As AI becomes embedded in academic life, a troubling reality has emerged: students are extremely vulnerable to its use. They don't know enough about what AI is to be alert to its shortcomings. And they don't know enough about their subject content to make judgements on this anyway.

Most importantly, they don't know what they don't know.

There are four key dangers facing students in today's world of AI.

They are: -Blind trust in its abilities -using it to side-step actual learning -Not knowing how it works -Perpetuating the gap between expertise and uncritical yet confident noise.

Universities; therefore, should teach critical AI literacy, emphasise why developing knowledge is important, and teach students why being an expert matters if they're going to engage meaningfully with AI.

The four dangers

Blind trust in Al's false confidence:

A recent Microsoft report showed that those who know the least about a topic are the most likely to accept AI outputs as correct. Generative AI programs produce text with remarkable confidence. Students lacking domain expertise can't identify when these systems are completely wrong.

Headlines already demonstrate the consequences of this in the workplace.

Lawyers submitting fabricated case citations generated by AI, and hospitals using AI transcription tools that invent statements never actually made.