AI-triggered dilemma at the campus

KIM SEUNG-JUNG
The author is a professor of archaeology at the University of Toronto.

The summer semester has begun at the University of Toronto, Canada, where I work. As I revised the syllabus for the online course I taught three years ago, I realized the power of artificial intelligence (AI) penetrating our lives.

With the widespread use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, the humanities education method centered on writing assignments has to change. Most educators, including myself, had banned the use of AI tools in homework and tests. As the use is increasing and detection is getting more difficult, however, the traditional evaluation system is about to be meaningless.

Chatbots such as ChatGPT, Perplexity AI and Google Gemini are large language models (LLMs) that constantly learn based on neural networks. As more people use them, and as more data is available, it becomes more precise. I usually give essay prompts for quizzes, and chatbots can provide a plausible answer.

If you ask the chatbots to intentionally make some of the grammatical errors often made by people from a certain country, AI can actually write in such a way. Even when I suspect the use of AI for homework, I often struggle to prove it.

Therefore, many professors are shifting to the direction of allowing students to use AI, depending on the characteristics of the class, after teachers clarify the specific use of the tool and the process. The idea is that AI chatbots can be used as a means of support, just as calculators are allowed in engineering tests.

AI has already become a part of our daily lives. It has been applied to many of the electronic devices, tools and apps we constantly use. It is also a part of military technology, not to mention manufacturing, agriculture and finance.

We are faced with an eerie reality where AI technologies employed in Ukraine and Gaza can determine the life and death of humans. It is time to build a new social and legal system to ensure human morality along with technological advancement.