Navigating AI in Education: Balancing Ethics, Innovation, and Critical Thinking
There is a metaphor in Hindi, “nakal karne ke liye bhi akal ki chahiye”. It translates loosely to “even to cheat, one requires some intelligence”. In an increasingly digital world, it is difficult to snatch technological innovations from the very generation that has grown up in a smart screen world. Artificial Intelligence is making our lives easier, but to utilise it for good, we need to use our own brains and think critically. Simply copy pasting off of AI will get us nowhere.
When chatGPT came into the picture, all of us students tried our hand at it. In one of my classes, a professor asked us if we’d ever tried using this new technology. None of us answered, the awkwardness in the room was palpable. After all, we didn’t want to send our own selves to the grave if we could save ourselves from academic moral wrath instead. But to our surprise, our professor shared that he himself had tried using it, and had found it fascinating!
That changed my outlook about AI. Maybe, we could find common ground - teachers, students, and scholars alike, and utilise this tool ethically and productively. If AI takes over mundane tasks like inputting, formatting and organisation, it would make it a lot easier for students to focus on absorbing and understanding course material rather than worrying about miscellaneous tasks. AI can also provide a starting point, acting as a study buddy that encourages and motivates you to look in different directions.As a History student, I know that Artificial Intelligence could never write a well researched paper for me - it would simply be unable to grasp different perspectives and choose multiple varied, and reliable sources. Additionally, it could never replicate my analysis, shaped by my lived experiences, conversations, and knowledge base, and curiosity. Though named Artificial Intelligence, it is humans who form the intelligence part of AI. Giving prompts is a skill of its own, and different prompts can yield wildly different results! Training students on prompts and interaction with these tools could enhance their research capabilities. Additionally, AI does not always yield accurate results, and can often cite incorrect sources. Teaching students about its limitations is a much better way to foster critical thinking instead of shaming and banning the usage of these tools, which will anyway continue to be used clandestinely. Data collection issues, racial biases, and prejudices are some concerns that currently plague AI. Students can be encouraged to actively seek out AI’s limitations, connecting these with company ethics, making them more empathetic and digitally safe citizens. We need to put our faith in the youth instead of blindly trusting AI, and equip them with tools to be safe, but always curious, always thinking.
Education cannot enlighten the minds of today if it does not see the vision of tomorrow. Instead of attempting to simply regress back to more traditional models of learning, we must learn instead to embody the old, trusted practices while voicing and embracing the new.
About the PlagiarismSearch.com`s Scholarship Winner
I completed my Bachelors in History Honours this summer from the Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi where I honed my skills in research and writing, and built lasting connections and friendships. I am now pursuing a Masters in Gender Studies from SOAS, University of London, where I hope to learn the skills needed to build an equitable and just world.
