By Flavio Cuevas Jr
I want to believe that we don’t have to agree about something like the nature and use of artificial intelligence to be able to question it– to be able to think critically about it.
The most important part, I think, is that we open ourselves up to asking more questions.
If you use AI chatbots which is your choice to make, do you know when to step away from it? I don’t mean when you use AI to code or do some other task for your specific field. I’m not trying to shame, exclude, or encourage a misunderstanding of those of us who use AI. But do we always need the help of a chatbot when we can not only do the thinking ourselves but also move our questions elsewhere. We are students and I think we are more capable than we think. Students before us didn’t need AI for learning, and now they’re our professors. I think we face a situation where we might graduate knowing far less than they did.
What moves conversation? I think it is the questions we ask. When we find an awkward moment with someone, we usually fill the silence with a question. Socializing moves us but what about disagreements? Should we always shut down someone else when we disagree?
Disagreement doesn’t have to mean a fight. I think we should be more comfortable asking why others think differently. In my mind, this is when real conversations flow. I would hope this is why we all came to university.
Going for higher education has already set you apart. It sets you apart from those who are prevented from attending and those who are convinced that they don’t need it. You came here to learn so you can be anexpert in your field. We shouldn’t just be thinking of university as a key to our future careers. It is a nucleus for people to start questioning the status quo, as they see it in the world. University is a place where we can learn to move from just questions to actions. Did we come to university to ask a chatbot to think for us? Doing the thinking ourselves is similar to exercise– practicing makes us improve. MIT’s Media Lab published a study last year which described chatbot users, after four months of use, “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”
I want us to think about why we shouldn’t rely on AI for what our minds are already capable of. When a machine was able to play the piano, did we stop wanting to hear humans play? There is a lot of value in thinking for ourselves– because when you ask a chatbot to write an essay for you or some other task, you might miss out on the point of why we came to university in the first place.
This period we’re living in now will be remembered by the ways we act during it. Protecting social cohesion, for us, means starting with very simple and realistic actions. We start by thinking of those of us who are not active in our community. If you’re reading the student newspaper, I think you’re doing great already. But there are some of us who get dismissed or left out, whether or not we mean to miss out on their voices. Or maybe we don’t feel included enough to want to go to a campus event. Or we just don’t have time. I think what is important are the little movements – like when we go to see a friend, when we join a club, when we organize time together outside of class, or even when we smile at people we have never met. Things that remind us why we came to learn here instead of learning on the internet for free.
Let’s keep organizing time in-person. Let’s keep calling out the things we know are not fair. Let’s encourage others to speak up in class conversations. Let’s be more comfortable disagreeing with someone. We can ask each other why we think the way we do. We need to learn more about each other in a way that is not flat. AI, from the human lens, is flat. A chatbot is unable to copy what happens to us when we learn from each other. We need to be reminded about the value that comes with just talking and learning from each other.
We need to have a conversation about how we want this time to be described in the future. By not talking about issues like AI, we risk losing the chance for those in the future to know how we felt. I’m not saying you need to bring it up to your friends in the middle of a hangout. What I mean is setting aside the time to think. There are campus events every semester where we can voice our opinions. These are critical points where we can begin to be heard.
Think about things like the new CSU AI Survey that was emailed to faculty and students back in late September. This is a small step you can take to be heard. In 30 years, when people ask how you felt about this time: what do you want the story to look like? I don’t think it benefits any of us if the narrative that is told about us is one of apathy or indifference. We do feel a certain way about this and I think we want to talk about it. The student leaders at the Cal State Student Association sparked this conversation a while ago with a detailed response to the CSU’s initiative to incorporate AI into academia – through OpenAI’s ChatGPT. They looked at the original CSU AI survey last semester and spoke up. They did this because students want more control over the pen that writes history.
I want to encourage you to do more. I know you have homework, midterms, and jobs. I would argue that the overall pressure on undergraduate students now is heightened compared to past generations. I don’t believe in asking so much of the average college student today. It’s not practical. I’m a sociology researcher, a writing tutor, a peer educator, and a building manager. I can only do so much myself. You’re not selfish for not participating in political or social issues. But I know there are small actions every day that can fundamentally shift our collective attitude. I don’t think I have everything figured out. If you disagree with me or think I have more to learn, please let me know. I mean this. Using less AI is not something you have to want, I just think furthering the conversation is necessary. This means turning away from screens, putting it in your pocket, and showing someone that you’re listening to them.