HIGH POINT, N.C. – A top educator at High Point University sees generative artificial intelligence as a valuable tool for learning and wants students to be comfortable with it inside and outside the classroom.
“I have a keen interest in developing the teachers that are going to be out in our schools within the next four years,” said Amy Holcombe, dean of the university’s Stout School of Education.
Generative AI is the ability of machines or software to do human tasks that typically are thought to need intelligence, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Students at High Point University are using it for projects, including a brain scanner.
“We ran a lot of data with the headset with some of our students on the team. We then took that data and ran it through some machine learning code,” senior Hannah Ellis said. “The machine learning is a component of AI, and that's how we were able to incorporate it and get the brain scanner to actually allow us to think to move a ball left or right.”
Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and High Point University’s innovator in residence, hosted a seminar last week on the future of AI.
“He said artificial intelligence is like a report, and it is – it’s static information,” Holcombe said after the Feb. 19 event. “It doesn't come with the judgment and the emotion that humans bring to the table.”
This kind of technology will help shape the future, Holcombe said, and she expresses optimism about it.
“I think that it could be used as a powerful tool in teaching and learning in the future,” she said. “I was reaffirmed that (Wozniak) is optimistic about AI as I am, but also cautious and not a doomsdayer, saying AI’s going to take over the world.”
The N.C. Department of Public Instruction last month released a guidebook for the use of generative AI in public schools. It is one of the first such state-issued guidance in the nation.
The N.C. guidebook says AI literacy should be integrated into all grade levels and curriculum areas, but it also says AI should be used responsibly.