Barbadian Academics Advocate for Creative Opportunities with Artificial Intelligence in Education and the Workplace

Two academics are urging Barbadians to embrace the creative opportunities being provided by Artificial Intelligence.

The case was put in the joint delivery of the 16th annual Samuel Jackman Prescod lecture recently by senior University of the West (UWI) lecturer Dr Glenda Gay and information and communication technology (ICT) manager Terry Scantlebury.

“We are about to face a tsunami of change with Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence),” Scantlebury told the audience at the auditorium of the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology in the Pine, St Michael.

Gay and Scantlebury told the DAILY NATION Generative AI was being used at the University of the West Indies to facilitate student learning.

Gay said students have access to a 24/7 chat bot programme which has been piloted by the UWI Global Campus – formerly the Open Campus.

A student may invite the chat bot to give him or her a quiz on a particular subject at any time of the day or night.

Gay, who is director of Academic Programming and Delivery (APAD), said: “AI gives them (the students) an instant response,” unlike having to wait for delayed emailed responses.

“It is like a virtual tutor who is there 24/7,” Scantlebury, who is the Group ICT manager at Goddard Enterprises, told the newspaper.

Gay said the university currently pays for the pilot project.

“The next step is to create our own inhouse chat bot,” she added.

Scantlebury, who lectures at UWI in ICT areas such as computer science and big data, said it was important to be transparent in the use of Generative AI. He said he advises his students when he is using AI in his teaching and allows students to use Generative AI. He noted there are programmes to check on plagiarism.

“I don’t have a problem with them using AI,” Scantlebury said.

Gay and Scantlebury argued that Generative AI should be used to aid student creativity.

The joint lecture was delivered on the topic Generative AI: Redefining Education and the Workplace.

Gay noted: “One of the things that you must do in this new tidal wave is to educate yourself.”

Scantlebury said: “Generative AI disrupts the workplace but provides a new era in education. You still need creative people to guide the process.”

Gay said she had conducted a survey on Generative AI among two groups – one teachers and the other students. She said the survey found that teachers were unsure how to use it. Three quarters of the teachers said they were hearing about it for the first time.

“Only 13 per cent of the students did not know about it,” she added. “So the students are way ahead of the educators. Our educators are slow to adapt to the new technologies.”

Gay said while there was a fear of the technology Generative AI could assist teachers with creating quizzes and generate multiple choice items at undergraduate levels.

“ . . . it can help them (educators) create lesson plans,” she stated.

Scantlebury said Generative AI had its limitations. For example, tests showed it had difficulty with mathematics, such as counting how many r’s were in the word strawberry.

He added Generative AI has been able to provide a complete profile of a marketing campaign quickly compared with a manual approach which would take far longer.

Scantlebury said new models can reason much better than older models.

“These models are reasoning at PhD (doctoral) levels,” he said.

The Group ICT manager at Goddard Enterprises said: “There are companies out there that are scrambling to own this space.”

New programming was appearing every six months, he suggested.

“I am suggesting there is no way to avoid the tidal wave,” Scantlebury stated. (HH)