Maha Bali: troubling generative AI

At the moment, there is no evidence that generative AI is a transformative tool for higher education. Making something more efficient is not the same as being better for learners or learning, and efficiency is not transformation. If we come from a critical perspective, focused on social justice and care, rather than a neoliberal one, then AI currently has little to offer. But it is also important to say no to resistance. We need to resist the harmful uses of AI and drop the assumption that it should be incorporated into teaching; we should not allow students to use it for everything instead of doing it for themselves. There’s little benefit, though, in telling students they are not allowed to use it. To help students develop the critical judgement they need to use gen AI well, we will have to use it a little bit ourselves, experimenting with a critical perspective – often enough to see its limitations and then to decide for ourselves whether it’s truly useful. Talking to colleagues is also vital, in sharing how we feel about it as much as what we know about it, and to ensure that we are always talking about the same thing. 

Maha’s practice of intentionally equitable hospitality can help us think through inequalities in the way our education system is set up that might mean some people need more support than others. The important question should always be, what is the purpose of this task? And then for those students that need more support, they can use AI anywhere apart from in relation to the skill that they need to learn how to do. Above all, if we practice with compassion, we have the potential to make AI something truly of benefit.

The resources we mentioned

Bali, M. 2024. Cake-making analogy for setting generative AI guidelines/ethics. Available from https://uen.pressbooks.pub/teachingandgenerativeai/chapter/cake-making-analogy-for-setting-generative-ai-guidelines-ethics/

Bali, M. 2024. When it comes to AI, is transparency enough? Available from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducation/2024/10/18/ethics-in-ai/And the article we talked about

Mills, A., Bali, M. and Eaton, L. (2023). How do we respond to generative AI in education? Open educational practices give us a framework for an ongoing process. Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching 6(1), pp.16-30. https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2023.6.1.34 Available from https://hawksites.newpaltz.edu/fdc/files/2023/07/How-Do-We-Respond-to-Generative-AI-in-Education-Open-Educational-Practices-Give-Us-a-Framework-for-an-Ongoing-Process.pdf