Understand: Tech & AIBBC Podcast that goes back to basics to explain the tech and AI terms we hear every day, and what they mean for you.
Tech LifeAs a BBC podcast, Tech Life discovers and explains the ways technology is changing our lives, wherever we are in the world.
In Machines We Trust"Produced by the M.I.T. Technology Review and hosted by Jennifer Strong, this deeply researched series provides weekly deep dives into how modern life has been transformed by A.I. The show began in 2020 with several episodes dedicated to facial recognition software, and the unnerving rise of its use by governments, private companies and police departments. Since then, “In Machines We Trust” has explored the use of A.I. in everything from consumer finance and gun control to medical diagnosis, while also keeping an eye on the big-picture ethics of the industry. Some episodes are dedicated to an oral history project titled “I Was There When,” which highlights turning points in the development of A.I., as told by witnesses to its rise" (Didbin, 2023,
6 Podcasts to Make Sense of A.I.", NY Times).
Books
Books
AI Text Generators and Teaching Writing: Starting Points for InquiryThis is not as much a book as it is a resource collection in Google Docs, with the opportunity for readers to leave comments and ideas. Strategies are provided regarding writing and assessment within the context of the generative AI revolution.
Talking about Generative AI: A Guide for EducatorsA free booklet produced by rhetoric & composition scholar, Sid Dobrin (UF), this resource provides administrators and faculty with fundamental information about GenAI and its bearing on instruction and institutional policies. Eminently practical and informed by the latest (and forthcoming) technical developments, Talking about Generative AI will be a boon to anyone who is suddenly confronted with the problem of how to understand and address GenAI’s impacts.
Conferences
Conferences & Working Groups
The Threats & Opportunities of Artificial Intelligence & Contract CheatingOn April 17-21, 2023, UC San Diego hosted an Academic Integrity Virtual Symposium. The synopsis states, "The integrity of the teaching and learning mission of universities is facing a challenge unlike those experienced in the past with the growth in companies and people who will complete academic work on behalf of students and the launch of generative artificial intelligence that provides answers and assignments in a matter of seconds. We cannot keep teaching, learning, and assessing as we did in the 20th century, and we can't ignore our societal obligation to ensure that our degrees are accurate representations of a graduate’s knowledge and skills." The symposium recorded its presentations, and they are available at this site.
This virtual symposium was divided into three parts: i) outlining the threats and opportunities posed by the contract cheating industry and artificial intelligence; ii) exploring the solutions for responding; and, iii) drafting a best practices document for use by University of California community members in ensuring academic integrity.
The symposium, sponsored and organized by the Academic Integrity Office at UC San Diego, was open to all.
MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AIThe Modern Language Association and Conference on College Composition and Communication have formed a joint task force to develop resources, guidelines, and professional standards around the use of AI and writing.
Journal Articles
Journal Articles
The Modern Prometheus: How AI Is Pushing the Limits of Human Knowledge (2023) in Computers and Libraries By SPC's Chad Mairn and Shelbey Rosengarten. During class discussions, students wonder whether Dr. Frankenstein’s biggest mistake is running from his invention and trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. His poor judgment destroys his life—a cautionary tale, if ever there was one. In light of that narrative arc, it’s probably best to look at what AI is, understand its capacities and limitations, consider some of its best uses for education and information seeking—and just imagine what will come of its integration.
Don't Act Like You Forgot: Approaching Another Literacy "Crisis" by (Re)Considering What We Know about Teaching Writing with and through Technologies (2023) in Composition StudiesIn 2015, when (re)considering his much-cited essay "Literacy and the Discourse of Crisis," John Trimbur recognized how "the rise of new digital media, new information economies, new means of knowledge production, and new technologies of surveillance" has contributed to the continued deployment of discourses of crisis "opening up all kinds of new opportunities for mass media pundits, scolds, killjoys, and 'death of the book' curmudgeons." While a lot has changed since I drafted my initial thoughts (and no doubt more will change during the publication process of this essay), I maintain my position that, while this iteration of AI technology is new and needs to be addressed on its own terms, our general approach to AI and writing should follow core tenets set out and cited in decades of scholarship and pedagogy in computers and writing, digital rhetorics, technical communications, and our allied fields. [...]it is important to remember that access, especially for marginalized communities, has potentially been limited along both material and ideological sociocultural lines (Banks; Haas). Perhaps adapting Stuart Selber's "computer literacy in the digital age" for our new algorithmic age would encourage pedagogical innovation that advocates for functional, critical, and rhetorical literacies as a way to prepare students of writing to be effective users, informed questioners, and reflective producers of AI and LLM technology "in the service of social action and change" (xii).
Faculty Development for AI (2023) in Journal of Faculty Development Higher education has witnessed a rapid increase in conversations about how AI text generators will impact teaching and learning. To begin this conversation in the pages of JFD, we have curated initial perspectives here focused on how to approach faculty development as we enter another new era of higher education.
The AI "Crisis" and a Turn To Pedagogy (2022) in Composition Studies"The college essay is dead [and] nobody is prepared for how AI will transform academia" screams Stephen Marche in The Atlantic; "Freaking Out About ChatGPT" wails the headline to John Warner's Inside Higher Ed article; "Professors, programmers and journalists could all be out of a job in just a few years, after the latest chatbot from the Elon Musk-founded OpenAI foundation stunned onlookers with its writing ability" opines Alex Hern in the Guardian. The observation that our teaching conditions are our students' learning conditions does not address which pedagogy is employed to generate that learning. [...]we let technology replace pedagogy because we have bought into the crisis language that says students will cheat if they have the chance. [...]an attitude of mistrust does not create a welcome learning environment for students, and it also represents a shift from teaching to policing that seems to go against the fundamental values of the discipline. GPT-3, the latest version of the model, was released in 2020 and has set new benchmarks for the performance of large language models.
Faculty Members’ Use of Artificial Intelligence to Grade Student Papers: A Case of Implications (2023) in International Journal for Educational IntegrityThis paper presents the case of an adjunct university professor to illustrate the dilemma of using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to grade student papers. The hypothetical case discusses the benefits of using a commercial AI service to grade student papers—including discretion, convenience, pedagogical merits of consistent feedback for students, and advances made in the field that yield high-quality work—all of which are achieved quickly. Arguments against using AI to grade student papers involve cost, privacy, legality, and ethics. The paper discusses career implications for faculty members in both situations and concludes with implications for researchers within the discourse on academic integrity.
Artificial intelligence, Text Generation Tools and ChatGPT – Does Digital Watermarking Offer a Solution? (2023) in International Journal for Educational Integrity Text generation tools, often presented as a form of generative artificial intelligence, have the potential to pose a threat to the integrity of the educational system. They can be misused to afford students marks and qualifications that they do not deserve. The emergence of recent tools, such as ChatGPT, appear to have left the educational community unprepared, despite the fact that the computer science community has been working to develop and improve such tools for years. This paper provides an introduction to text generation tools intended for a non-specialist audience, discussing the types of assessments that students can outsource, showing the type of prompts that can be used to generate text, and illustrating one possible watermarking technique that may allow generated text to be detected. A small-scale study into watermarking suggests that this technique is feasible and show technical promise but should not be relied on as a solution to widespread use of artificial intelligence based tools by students. Alternative solutions are needed, including encouraging the educational community to work with artificial intelligence rather than against it. As such, the paper concludes by discussing seven potential areas for further exploration.
Who Does the Thinking: The Role of Generative AI in Higher EducationThis webinar is hosted by the
International Association of Universities. Generative AI has taken the world by storm since OpenAI launched ChatGPT-3 in November 2022. Generative AI is characterized by its capacity to generate human-like content based on deep learning models in response to prompts. There is a wealth of opinions about how this will impact higher education spanning from the need to limit the use in the protection of higher education to embracing the tool as a means to improve higher education. In this webinar session, speakers from different regions shared their views and perspectives and discuss how Generative AI will transform higher education. What are the challenges to be addressed and which opportunities can be pursued to improve the quality of higher education? Watch the webinar and learn about the uncertainties, tensions, and opportunities triggered by Generative AI.
