Generative AI: Opportunities and Caveats in Academia

hi there David Mendes here and I am pumped on the sixth season of Beyond The Thesis with Papa PhD I've just done something I've been dreaming of ever since I started the podcast I've just had a coffee hour with listeners of the show this year I've decided to get closer to the community and the first step is the creation of the brand new Beyond The Thesis with Papa PhD community on school the community is a safe space where you can meet me and other like-minded people and talk about the post PhD career experience to be one of the 100 founding members of the community go tool.com papap PhD and join the conversation see you there welcome to Beyond The Thesis with Papa PhD the podcast that delves into the diverse and impactful roles scientists can play beyond the lab with me David Mendes welcome to this new episode of season 6 of Beyond The Thesis with Papa PhD today I have the great pleasure of having with me straight from New York preten sha preten is CEO of pedagogic do Cloud which provides Innovative Technology Solutions to help Educators navigate Global challenges in a rapidly evolving World he's the author of wy's Josie bass publication Ai and the future of Education teaching in the age of artificial int intelligence pren is also the founder of the Civic Focus nonprofit United for social change he has a ba in philosophy and Masters in Education policy from Harvard University Welcome to Beyond The Thesis with Papa PhD prean it's super uh super cool to have you here talking about this subject that is having so many people question uh themselves about how they need to change their work uh what tools to adopt and what tools to avoid and even just is this something that's Untouchable and that we should just stay away from in Academia so super super happy to have you here today and to explore that with you yeah thank you so much for having me it'll be a important conversation going into the new school year so pretend maybe uh one thing to uh to ask you right at the beginning is that you know, the name your book is Ai and the future of education is you know, it's a subject that that many people are talking about and it's a subject that many people are thinking about but the thing is is that you know, there are certain organizations or entities that are slower to uh to uh to adopt new methodologies and certainly academia is one of them so one of the reasons why I think we need people like you that have that PhD experience but also have that drive to actually apply practical solutions in the real world is because you have both worlds you you actually were doing science and then you decided to pivot and then you created these solutions so maybe you could talk a little bit about your journey and how you got to where you are today and how that's shaped your perspective on Ai and education sure so I'll start with my own experience as a researcher I spent a decade as a research scientist in industry working at places like Google and Turing award-winning AI research labs and I was fascinated by AI and I was in awe of AI and I felt like the capability that I was seeing was creating asymmetric problems right so for example in my machine learning research I was trying to build models to predict the future to predict the risk score health scores and all of those things and I thought well these systems are powerful and they're good at recognizing patterns but I kept thinking about uh-oh I'm going to build a model for predicting health risk uh-huh and it makes a mistake it classifies a patient as low-risk when they're actually high risk right that might literally kill someone so I started questioning the ethics of the intelligence I was creating and I went back to school to get a master's degree in education policy because I felt like the leverage point the best place to change how humans and machines interact at scale was through education the way people are taught to interact with AI and to think critically about AI and so that's what drives my work now I I believe that every student regardless of socio-economic background should have that AI literacy and that critical thinking skills to be able to navigate an AI-driven world and so it's educational equity that drives my work and to think that a generation of people could be left behind because they don't have access to the right tools and right curriculum and right pedagogy to prepare them for an AI-driven world that really that's what concerns me it sounds like you were really driven by a sense of equity and a sense that there were these asymmetric problems that were created by AI so talk a little bit about that because I think that's a concern for so many people right now and I think the fear in a lot of cases is you know is it going to be a tool that makes things unequal or is it going to be something that can help create opportunity but what are some of those asymmetric problems that you see emerging right now not just in healthcare but in education specifically uh I think some of the asymmetric problems are very clear so if you're in a rural school in Kentucky or a rural school in Michigan and you don't have access to a good science teacher or a good math teacher then you might be stuck with a teacher that's teaching you out of a 10-year-old curriculum or you might be stuck with just a computer because you don't have human capital to to meet the needs of the education right and we know that affects long-term trajectory of students so one asymmetric problem is that some students have access to great teachers in great schools and some students don't and that gap is actually widening and AI could exacerbate that problem or it could solve it so the question is how do we actually deploy AI in a way that benefits students and educators that are underserved and that are under-resourced right so one of the things that we're focused on at Pedagogy Cloud is how do we use AI to help teachers be more effective how do we use AI to give every student a great tutor how do we use AI to give every student access to immediate feedback on their work right so these are all things that we know are really important pedagogical techniques that are research-backed and we're trying to make them available to all students and all teachers and so when we're thinking about education we're asking the question how can we ensure that students from low-income backgrounds and students of color they have equal or even better access to AI-powered technologies and support because we know that there are there are some serious equity implications if if we don't do this and I think that's really important because you know it's not just about the technology it's about who's building it and who has access to it and I'm glad that you're focused on on that because you're right like we have we have a lot of innovation happening in Silicon Valley and a lot of innovation happening in places like the Bay Area but then we have schools in rural Kentucky that are still using 10-year-old curriculum so how can we actually ensure that these tools are getting to the students that need them the most so let's dive a little bit into that so you mentioned you're trying to give every student access to great tools how are you actually doing that right now with pedagogy cloud so pedagogy cloud is a ai-powered education platform that we've built that helps educators and educational institutions meet their students where they are we have a set of proprietary AI models that we've trained in-house and we also plug in large language models like GPT-4 from OpenAI to create a comprehensive learning experience so what we do is we create adaptive learning experiences that meet students where they are in their learning so we assess the student's current level of understanding and we customize the learning pathway to meet their individual needs right and so think about it as a personalized tutor for every student so what we know from research is that great teachers are using techniques like formative assessment and they're providing immediate feedback they're using scaffolding and they're differentiating their instruction and what we're doing is we're using AI to help make those techniques available to every student so whether you're a student in an under-resourced school or a student in a highly resourced school you can have access to the same level of instructional quality and that's what we're trying to achieve so we've been working with schools to essentially deploy these solutions and in the process we've been learning a lot about what works and what doesn't work and we've been refining our models based on feedback from educators and students and I think one of the important things is that we're not just building technology for technology's sake right we're building it to address the needs of educators and students so when I talk to educators they have limited time limited resources and limited professional development so what we're trying to do is create tools that are easy to integrate into their workflow and that help them do their job better and one of the areas that I'm most excited about is AI-powered tutoring systems and so what we're essentially doing is we're creating a virtual tutor that can provide immediate feedback and personalized instruction to students at scale and I think the potential there is really immense because if we can create AI tutors that are better than or equal to great human tutors right then we can democratize access to high-quality tutoring and that's a really exciting prospect so let's talk a little bit about how AI tutors compare to human tutors so what are some of the limitations of AI tutors right now in your view so I think there are a few limitations one is that AI tutors are really good at some domains like math and science right where there's a clear correct answer and clear learning objectives but for domains like writing and social-emotional learning they're not as good as a human tutor right now because there's a lot of nuance and there's a lot of subjectivity and there's a lot of context that a human tutor understands and an AI tutor might miss so I think that the future is probably not AI tutors replacing human tutors but rather AI tutors augmenting the work of human tutors so great teachers can focus on the most valuable work which is building relationships with students and doing things that require high levels of emotional intelligence and creativity and AI can take on the more routine tasks like providing immediate feedback on math problems or helping students brainstorm ideas for essays right so that's what I think the future looks like it's a hybrid model where humans and AI are working together to support student learning and I think that's the most responsible way to deploy AI in education so let's talk a little bit about the responsible use of AI in education so you've touched on this a bit but what are some of the key considerations when deploying AI and education right now so one key consideration is bias right so AI models can encode historical biases that are in the training data right so for example if we're training an AI model to predict which students are at risk of dropping out and the historical data has biases in it related to race or socio-economic background then the AI model can actually perpetuate those biases at scale right so we need to be really careful about bias in AI and we need to audit our models and we need to think about how we're collecting training data so another key consideration is transparency right so students and educators need to understand how AI systems work and what decisions they're making so that they can make informed decisions about whether to use them or not so we're very focused on making sure that we explain to educators and students how our systems work what data we're using and how we're using that data so another key consideration is privacy and data security right so we're collecting a lot of data about students and we need to make sure that that data is protected and that it's used ethically and responsibly and so we have very strict policies around data privacy and we're compliant with laws like FERPA which protect student data and so I think those are some of the key considerations when deploying AI and education bias transparency and privacy and I think it's really important that companies in this space are thinking deeply about those issues and not just rushing to deploy AI without thinking about the implications so let's talk a little bit about what educators should be doing in their classrooms right now with AI so you know you've written about this extensively in your book but what are some of the practical steps that teachers can take right now to start preparing their students for an AI-driven world well I think the first step is for teachers to become familiar with AI themselves right so teachers need to understand how AI works what are the capabilities what are the limitations what are the ethical implications right so I think a really important step is for teachers to play with ChatGPT right now and to understand what it can do and what it can't do and some of the ethical considerations around using it right so once teachers understand that then they can start thinking about how to integrate AI into their teaching so some of the things we recommend is that educators create spaces where students can engage with AI and learn about it critically right so instead of banning students from using ChatGPT why don't we teach them how to use it responsibly and how to think critically about it so we can have assignments where students use ChatGPT to help them brainstorm or to help them edit their work but then they also have to reflect on how AI influenced their learning right so we can create assignments where students use ChatGPT to generate text and then they have to evaluate that text and they have to decide if it's good or if it's not good and if it's not good they have to understand why and they have to fix it right so I think creating spaces where students can engage with AI and learn to think critically about it is really important and I think the second thing is that we need to rethink what it is that we're asking students to do so if AI can write an essay why are we asking students to write essays right and so we need to think about what are the learning objectives and if the learning objective is that students can write an essay then maybe we need to rethink that but if the learning objective is that students can think critically and can synthesize information and can communicate their ideas clearly right then we can create assignments where they use AI as a tool to help them accomplish those objectives right so I think the key is to rethink the pedagogy and to rethink what we're asking students to do in light of AI capabilities and to make sure that our learning objectives are aligned with the real world skills that students need so let's talk a little bit about that so you know you mentioned that we should rethink what we're asking students to do so if a student can use ChatGPT to write an essay what is the purpose of an essay right now so this is a really important question and I think a lot of educators are grappling with this right now so the traditional purpose of an essay was to have students demonstrate their understanding of a topic and to have them communicate their ideas in writing right so if AI can do that then we need to rethink what the purpose of an essay is so I think the new purpose might be that students can think critically about a topic and they can synthesize information from multiple sources and they can form their own perspective and they can communicate that perspective in a persuasive way right so the essay becomes more about critical thinking and synthesis and persuasion and less about the mechanical act of writing right so if that's the case then we can ask students to use AI as a tool to help them with the writing but then we need to ask them questions like why did you choose this particular structure for your essay why did you choose these particular sources why did you disagree with this particular argument right so we're shifting the focus from the mechanical act of writing to higher-order thinking and critical thinking and I think that's a really important shift and I think that's what educators need to be doing right now so let's talk a little bit about what school administrators should be doing right now to prepare their schools for an AI-driven world so I think school administrators need to be thinking about three things one is curriculum right so they need to be thinking about what they're teaching and whether it's preparing students for an AI-driven world right so we recommend that schools develop a K-12 AI literacy curriculum where students start learning about AI in elementary school and continue learning about it throughout their K-12 education so by the time they graduate high school they have a strong foundation in AI literacy and they can use AI tools responsibly and they can think critically about AI right and I think that's really important because right now most schools don't have any AI literacy curriculum and so students are graduating without that foundation right so that's the first thing I think the second thing is professional development right so teachers need to be trained on how to integrate AI into their classrooms and school administrators need to invest in professional development for their teachers and I think the third thing is infrastructure right so schools need to have the technology and the tools in place to support AI-powered learning so they need to have the right devices they need to have the right software and they need to have the right internet connectivity so that students can access AI tools and AI-powered learning experiences and so I think those are the three things that school administrators need to be focused on right now curriculum professional development and infrastructure and I think if schools do those things then they'll be well-positioned to prepare their students for an AI-driven world so let's talk a little bit about some of the common misconceptions about AI and education that you've encountered so one misconception is that AI is going to replace teachers right so some people think that if we have AI tutors then we don't need human teachers anymore and I think that's a real misconception because as I mentioned earlier the future of AI in education is a hybrid model where humans and AI are working together right and great teachers do things that AI can't do right now like building relationships with students and inspiring students and providing mentorship and guidance right so I think AI is going to augment the work of teachers not replace them and another misconception is that AI is a panacea right so some people think that if we just deploy enough AI then we can solve all the problems in education and I think that's a misconception because AI is a tool and like any tool it has limitations and it needs to be deployed thoughtfully and responsibly and we need to make sure that it's aligned with our educational goals and our values right so I think those are two common misconceptions that I've encountered and I think it's important that we address those misconceptions so that people have a more realistic understanding of what AI can and can't do in education so let's talk a little bit about the future of education so in the next 5 to 10 years what do you think the biggest changes are going to be so I think one of the biggest changes is going to be a shift from a one-size-fits-all approach to education to a more personalized approach right so instead of having all students learn the same thing at the same pace we'll have students learning at their own pace and learning the things that are most relevant to them right so with AI we can create personalized learning pathways that are tailored to each student's needs and interests and goals right and so I think that's going to be a really big shift and I think the second shift is going to be a shift in what we're teaching so instead of focusing so much on memorization and recall we're going to focus more on critical thinking and creativity and collaboration right because those are the skills that are going to be most valuable in an AI-driven world right and so I think schools are going to rethink what they're teaching and they're going to focus more on those higher-order skills right and I think the third shift is going to be a shift in how we measure learning so instead of just using standardized tests we're going to use a variety of assessments that measure critical thinking and creativity and collaboration and real-world problem-solving right and so I think those are some of the biggest changes that we're going to see in the next 5 to 10 years and I think it's really exciting and I think it's necessary if we want to prepare students for an AI-driven world so you mentioned AI literacy as being really important so what exactly is AI literacy in your view so AI literacy has a few components so one component is understanding how AI works right so students should understand the basics of machine learning and neural networks and they should understand how AI models are trained and how they make decisions right another component is understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI right so students should understand what AI is good at and what AI is not good at and in what domains AI excels and in what domains humans are still better right and another component is understanding the ethical implications of AI right so students should understand issues like bias and privacy and security and the societal implications of AI and another component is knowing how to use AI tools responsibly right so students should know how to use ChatGPT and other AI tools and they should know what are the best practices for using those tools and what are the potential risks associated with using those tools right so I think AI literacy has all of those components and I think it's really important that students develop these skills and I think schools need to start teaching AI literacy right now so as we wrap up the conversation is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience so I think the most important thing is that we have a lot of work to do right now to prepare our students for an AI-driven world and that work starts with educators and school administrators and policymakers rethinking how we approach education and I think the good news is that there are resources and tools available right now that can help us do that work right so educators can go to our website at pedagogy.cloud and learn more about our AI-powered education platform and we have free resources and trainings and curriculum that educators can use right now to start preparing their students for an AI-driven world right so I think the call to action is for educators and school administrators to start thinking deeply about how they're going to prepare their students for an AI-driven world and to take action right now right so I think that's the most important thing that we can do right now so David thank you so much for having me on the show it's been a pleasure talking with you and exploring these really important questions about AI and education thank you so much for sharing your insights and your perspective on this really critical topic and I think our audience is really going to benefit from this conversation so thanks again for coming on the show thanks for having me and I'm sure that the audience is excited about the resources that you've shared at pedagogy.cloud and the work that you're doing there so thanks again and I wish you all the best with the work that you're doing to prepare students for an AI-driven world thanks so much David thanks for listening to Beyond The Thesis with Papa PhD if you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes please don't hesitate to reach out visit our website at beyond thethesis.com or find us on social media you can also join the Beyond The Thesis with Papa PhD community on school go tool.com papap HD and share your ideas with other members of our community thanks for listening and see you next time