Artificial Intelligence is rapidly advancing and has benefits within certain fields of work. According to the NC Department of Commerce, AI has positive impacts on productivity and democratization of skills. Several studies have suggested AI may be beneficial for worker productivity across tasks like business writing, programming, customer support and consulting.
After reading the article “Are you Doing Your Students a Disservice If You Ignore AI?” by Beth McMurtrie, it was learned that many people have opposing views against teaching students generative AI. An English professor stated that it is not considered an ‘academic’ skill, although some students are being required to use AI tools in their work, requring them to learn it themselves, since some teachers believe it is wrong to teach students about it. Another teacher has shown her students how to use AI to help with brainstorming and proofreading their assignments and require them to tell her exactly what percentages were AI generated and student generated, and how they used the tool. AI helps significantly if a student is stuck when writing an essay, or working on coding, this allows for AI to help them brainstorm ideas, and may even teach them something new.
AI also has the ability to give personalized feedback before submitting it to the teacher, to allow the student to improve their work further. AI is now becoming a tool in many industries such as enhancing cyber security by revolutionizing threat detection, automating tasks and strengthening vulnerability management. According to Fortinet, AI can also remove human error, in multiple industries, which is a common weakness of security defenses. Automating cybersecurity helps organizations identify and correct potential deficiencies in their security strategies, resulting in more secure IT environments. By teaching students the ways of AI, it allows for them to learn further and create more things with AI in their industries, further expanding AI.
Teaching AI offers numerous benefits for students by preparing them for a tech driven workforce, as it is being integrated into various industries. It also can foster critical thinking and problem solving skills by providing feedback and answers to questions they may be stuck on. Such feedback helps students discover their strengths and weaknesses, allowing for them to improve. Although, a student could go to a teacher and ask, but that may not always be feasible and they may need a response rapidly, allowing for the student to turn to AI for assistance right away. Such as in my case, as a cyber security major, I have had my fair share of being stuck while writing code. For instance, if I had an assignment to write code, and I get stuck because one line of code won’t work, no matter what I do, I can turn to AI to ask a question about it. AI will then proceed to explain what I had done wrong, and exactly how to fix it. By implementing AI in my education, it thoroughly explained what I did incorrect, and in a timely matter. AI can benefit many other students in different majors, allowing for an in depth explanation of a very specific question that may not be found on google in a simple search.
Collaborated with Jaeley Barone