The mixing of Synthetic Intelligence (AI) instruments in instructional settings has been growing over the past two years.

Based on an ACT Survey in 2023, 46% of surveyed college students reported utilizing AI instruments for varsity assignments.

Sixty-two % of the scholars surveyed additionally famous that their academics didn’t allow using AI for schoolwork.

Whereas quite a few conversations have been carried out round campus relating to using AI on assignments, there stays some uncertainty about how SFU professors view using AI instruments.

Professor of English Brennan Thomas believes AI platforms like ChatGPT have each advantages and downsides.

“AI has some makes use of within the classroom,” stated Thomas. “For instance, AI may be useful for getting an introduction to a subject and producing lists of sources.”

Thomas stated that when college students are struggling to seek out potential counterarguments for points they really feel strongly about, she may counsel that they ask an AI platform to discover opposing viewpoints.

“For getting began on subjects, producing an inventory of sources, and brainstorming totally different factors of views, AI is a useful gizmo,” stated Thomas, who additionally serves as director of the College’s Writing Heart.

“In the end, AI is designed to offer fast data, and it’s no totally different than Google in that respect.”

Whereas Thomas is obsessed with the advantages of synthetic intelligence, and has used ChatGPT in her lessons, she additionally defined that there are quite a few downsides to AI, comparable to being supplied with outdated and inaccurate data.

“The knowledge that’s generated by AI is usually repetitive, inaccurate, too basic, and even old-fashioned,” stated Thomas.

“Additionally, when college students use AI for his or her works cited web page, the title formatting tends to be fully incorrect, inserting citation marks round works that must be italicized.”

Many educators are cautious of AI on account of educational integrity issues. Nevertheless, Thomas stated that AI writing is usually simple to detect, and he or she has not seen this as a problem in her English and writing lessons.

“I examine college students’ tasks with an AI detector and I’ve discovered no main issues to this point.”

Thomas additionally stated it’s value noting that each on-line journal that publishes fiction and poetry now has a strict anti-AI generated coverage. If anybody submits AI-generated materials to those retailers, they’re banned.

“Fiction and poetry generated by AI are usually terrible as a result of nice writing displays not solely the author’s type, but additionally the author’s understanding of human expertise. AI can not do that as a result of it could’t produce what it doesn’t expertise.”

“AI can solely repeat what it is aware of – it’s simply one thing that may assist us get began on our personal writing course of.”