he rapid development of generative artificial intelligence tools capable of producing natural language text, images and computer code, holds tremendous promise to reshape the traditional educational paradigms. The debut of artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT and the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools are opening new ways of teaching and revolutionising education by expanding the boundaries of the classroom.

Integrating AI in education provides an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of learning and teaching. AI-powered technologies, such as intelligent tutoring systems and adaptive learning platforms, provide support for student well-being and student success. These technologies have the potential to incorporate AI tools into online learning systems. The AI tools enhance personalised learning experiences, promote student engagement by promoting collaborative learning and provide a more accessible research environment.

For educators, AI tools can help reduce workload by automating administrative tasks, plagiarism detection, assessment and grading processes and enabling data-driven decision-making. The tools can also facilitate timely feedback by providing real-time analysis, recommending personalised interventions and identifying at-risk students. On an institutional level, AI holds the promise of improving efficiencies and transforming academic administration, quality assurance of curricula, student recruitment and pedagogical processes.

AI-based tools are being used for various purposes in different academic disciplines. Their growing popularity is globally changing the academic landscape. Such tools can support text analysis or even write abstracts for research papers. The ChatGPT and other chatbots produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Students are, therefore, tempted to get the assignment done quickly and for free with just a few keystrokes. Research papers have already been published with such tools listed as co-authors.

Naturally, there is concern among educators regarding the impact these tools may have on academic integrity and issues of originality in writing. The need to learn the first principles, for example, sentence structure, can hardly be over-emphasised. The AI models won’t be doing the thinking for their users. Without a critical thinking process, research institutions will be more like the printing press.

We are witnessing the unparalleled explosion and transformative magnitude of generative AI tools, especially ChatGPT. It can perhaps be compared only with the internet. Currently, ChatGPT has more than 180 million users. It gets approximately 600 million visits per month. According to available data, 43 percent of all college students have used ChatGPT or other AI tools. 89 percent of these used it for assignments, making it one of the fastest-ever applications ever adopted in educational settings. Within the education world, teachers have been struggling with how to respond to this emerging technology. According to a renowned ranking service for internet websites, ChatGPT’s website is ranked 7th among the most popular websites for Pakistani internet users. The latest version, GPT-4, scored a 1,410 on the SAT, could pass the bar exam and cleared the advanced placement tests for biology, art history, environmental science, macroeconomics, psychology, US history and more.

The rapid diffusion of ChatGPT in the education arena has drawn the attention of educators worldwide. Some educators are enthusiastic about its potential to support learning, yet others are concerned about the abusive and unreflective use of chatbots. It has been reported that sometimes ChatGPT generates plausible-sounding but erroneous and incorrect answers. As a consequence, many educational institutions and organisations have restricted the use of AI-based tools by their employees or students. ChatGPT is still in its evolutionary phase, and its full impact has yet to be witnessed and understood.

Awareness of the potential benefits and misuse of AI is crucial for educators before they deploy it in their classrooms. The potential and challenges of AI require adjustments in our courses, assignments and ways to engage students to positively and ethically benefit from generative AI tools. This requires a shift to an evaluation system where the use of AI tools is less relevant. This can be made possible by assigning structured assignments that require students own thinking and formative feedback from instructors. Strategies are being developed at some institutions to help maintain academic integrity, critical thinking and writing skills in teaching and learning that are relevant to the challenges of AI language generation tools.

AI advancement in higher education introduces several challenges and concerns, such as data privacy and security, algorithmic bias, transparency and discrimination. The societal impact of AI, including changes in employment patterns and the transformation of the workforce, requires careful consideration. The increasing diffusion of artificial intelligence in higher education, therefore, emphasises the necessity of exploring its implications for ethical, social, and educational dynamics within the sector. Furthermore, seamless AI integration in the education system requires addressing the training needs of educators. Educational institutions, policymakers, and AI developers must collaboratively address this issue and provide the necessary support and training for educators to effectively implement AI technologies in their teaching practices.

Artificial intelligence is a trending theme in learning and teaching. AI offers unparalleled opportunities in the educational arena but is not free from foreseeable and latent risks. The key lies in harnessing the strengths of AI by carefully assessing the implications of this phenomenon. This requires a comprehensive understanding of AI integration beyond technical aspects that embraces ethical, social and educational dimensions. The full potential of AI in education can be harnessed by a collaborative effort of all educational stakeholders while ensuring thoughtful and effective implementation at every level.

Like it or not, generative AI tools are here to stay. They will get better, more accurate and harder to detect. Banning them is apparently not a viable option. Educational institutes and educators must carefully assess the growing potential impact of AI on future processes of teaching and learning.

AI efficiently automates the way things have been done in the past; unfortunately, poor models of instruction are not an exception. The dean at the Graduate School of Education, Stanford, warns, “I want to emphasise that a lot of AI is also going to automate really bad ways of teaching.”

There is a growing consensus that AI education will be a key enabler for future opportunities. But being digitally literate will not be enough. The human intellect, creativity, empathy and having the right skills and knowledge will remain the essential ingredients of success. Blindly adapting artificial intelligence tools will catalyse the transformative process for many academic programmes by generating the output of a breed of unintelligent graduates, lacking creativity and critical thinking.

The writer teaches at SZABIST, Islamabad, and can be reached at: thepirsahib@yahoo.com