Hong Kong – Leon Lei, who teaches information science within the school of training at The College of Hong Kong (HKU), lately produced a textbook – in 30 hours.
Utilizing a mixture of generative AI and different instruments, Lei turned transcripts and slides from a collection of on-line lessons he taught throughout pandemic lockdowns into textual content (15 hours), then edited and compiled it into a ten,000-word course ebook (one other 15 hours). He additionally transformed chapters to thoughts maps – diagrams which present ideas in visible kind – and created video clips.
“College students have various studying kinds,” mentioned Lei, who’s operating AI clinics throughout the college on utilizing AI instruments for educating. “Some need to pay attention, watch. Some desire a thoughts map first. Earlier than this, I didn’t have time to discover.”
Generative AI is inflicting academics to rethink how they train and the way they will put together college students for the long run. Directors are reframing what universities needs to be educating that future employers will need.
“When did we final have this type of shake-up?” mentioned Pauline Chiu, affiliate vice chairman for educating and studying at HKU. “We’ve received the eye of academics, dad and mom, college students. It’s a possibility to reinvent our educating. Now that’s an enormous optimistic.”
Generative AI instruments – constructed on giant language fashions (LLMs) that synthesize huge troves of knowledge to generate textual content, code, photographs and extra – are seen as the most important technological leap because the net browser and sensible telephones. However whereas the know-how is highly effective, it may well ship imperfect outcomes and studying establishments have been grappling in the previous few months over learn how to deploy it responsibly – if in any respect.
The arrival of generative AI is elevating greater questions on what kind of future universities needs to be making ready college students for. “What ought to we be educating in college alongside it? What do future workers want? What sort of different human abilities can we have to be educating? How do you collaborate with different human beings, what about relationship constructing?” mentioned Chiu.
HKU, a research-led complete college based in 1911, is the oldest college in Hong Kong and recognized for its medical college. It’s ranked as the highest college in Hong Kong and 35th globally, in accordance with the Instances Larger Training World College Rankings 2024.
HKU initially instituted a ban earlier within the 12 months on utilizing generative AI instruments. “We knew it was momentary,” mentioned Chiu. In February, a job pressure made up of workers, college students and technologists started assembly weekly to debate the implications of the brand new know-how.
When Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, powered by OpenAI’s GPT, grew to become usually accessible in January, the college’s IT division acted first. “We mentioned AI is the long run,” mentioned Flora Ng, chief data officer and college librarian. “It’s what we have to pursue to reinforce analysis, educating and studying.”
HKU was already utilizing Microsoft’s options and the IT division made an uncommon choice to go forward and fund Azure OpenAI Service to workers solely from April to June, so they may check it out and perceive the affect of generative AI. Normally, new IT funding includes tender paperwork with detailed necessities and buy-in from varied departments – which may take months.
On this case, “no person knew what the full necessities needs to be,” mentioned Ng. “Our IT division mentioned we’ll take a danger; we’re going to fund it. The technique for me was to shortly undertake, then if it fails, to pivot.”
In June, the HKU senate formally endorsed a generative AI coverage that established it as a “fifth literacy” for college kids, alongside oral, written, visible and digital literacy. On the finish of August, HKU and 7 different universities in Hong Kong introduced they have been making Azure OpenAI Service accessible to all workers and college students, with few restrictions, when the brand new college semester began in September.
“Our stance is to embrace it,” mentioned Chiu, including that it’s as much as academics in the event that they needed to restrict use for his or her programs or sure assignments.
“There could also be conditions during which we would like college students to be taught the fundamentals by limiting using generative AI,” mentioned Chiu. “However will probably be as much as the academics to make that call.”
The college has rolled out a number of generative AI chatbots, constructed with Azure OpenAI Service. An IT helpdesk chatbot solutions easy queries, liberating workers as much as cope with extra sophisticated points. One other chatbot offers with administrative questions, similar to how to enroll in a course, and one other one on undergraduate course choice.
Workers and college students can even entry a extra basic HKU chatbot for educating and studying.
Early utilization statistics have been encouraging. Within the first 20 days, because it was launched on September 1, greater than 10 % of the scholar inhabitants of 36,400 have used the final HKU chatbot. About 17 % of the workers inhabitants of 13,100 have accomplished the identical. The IT helpdesk chatbot in flip obtained 1,276 inquiries between August 21 and September 13.
To guard consumer information and privateness, the chatbots don’t preserve any information on queries. “We don’t take a look at what they ask. We don’t preserve any information,” mentioned Ng.
College students are taught primary generative AI literacy in AI workshops run by HKU’s Educating and Studying Innovation Centre. They be taught that outcomes will not be at all times good, however that the HKU chatbot might be a good suggestion generator. Neither is it a search engine; it’s a language synthesizer. They’re informed to at all times examine authentic sources for accuracy. And so forth.
The massive concern, after all, is that college students grow to be too reliant on generative AI to finish assignments with out actually understanding the supplies. Nevertheless, HKU academics is not going to be counting on AI detection instruments as a result of they aren’t correct or dependable at present. There’s a risk of false negatives and false positives, which might result in a scholar being wrongly accused of dishonest.
As an alternative, academics are requested to reinvent evaluation, mentioned Cecilia Chan, director of HKU’s Educating and Studying Innovation Centre. “Precisely what do we would like the scholar to be taught?” mentioned Chan. “Take into consideration the training course of, outcomes and expertise, that’s what is necessary.”
A instructor might, for instance, ask for a abilities demonstration or an oral presentation as an alternative of an essay. Or they may ask the chatbot to generate a variety of essays and ask college students to critique them. Are there factual errors? College students might add their opinions and perhaps generate an essay plan. It’s a form of reverse engineering of an essay, the place “you possibly can nonetheless have all the training goals of an essay,” mentioned Chan.
A scholar may very well be requested to reveal competency by hands-on work at totally different stations like within the medical college’s Goal Structured Medical Examination, stuff that AI can not do.
Chan mentioned she herself makes use of generative AI instruments “like a private assistant,” together with to reply the various emails she will get asking her for interviews and to talk at conferences. To those that fear about counting on it an excessive amount of, she gives a comparability.
“Are you able to think about life with out one among these?” she asks, waving her smartphone. “That’s what we’re getting used to.”
College students are already figuring all this out for themselves.
Lai Yan Ying, also referred to as Cheri, is a fourth-year scholar majoring in linguistics. She mentioned she wouldn’t use it for writing an essay however thinks it’s honest to make use of it to generate concepts, similar to questions for latest analysis challenge the place she interviewed somebody about their expertise studying English.
“I don’t suppose we are able to simply use ChatGPT for all the pieces,” mentioned Lai. “Typically, I simply desire to go to a library and seize a ebook.”
For Yan Wing Lam, a fourth-year engineering main, generative AI is much less of a thoughts shift, “In engineering, we’re fairly into AI already. It’s similar to a software to me.”
When Lai and Yan each labored on a latest challenge collectively, they encountered each the promise and the restrictions of the software. For a course referred to as Digitizing Cultural Heritage in Larger China, they determined to make use of OpenAI’s DALL·E 3 picture generator through Azure OpenAI Service on the HKU chatbot to create footage of Chinese language legendary creatures – with their teacher’s blessings.
They have been solely partially profitable.
A immediate for “blue dragon with horns and claws” efficiently introduced forth an image of Qing Lengthy, an azure dragon god in Chinese language mythology. Nevertheless, it took just a few tries to generate a usable image of Chi Ru, a fish with a human face.
Makes an attempt to conjure up a likeness of Xiang Liu, a nine-headed monster snake, saved returning footage of single-headed snakes. Lai ended up making her personal digital drawing of Xiang Liu, which took about half an hour, versus simply seconds utilizing DALL·E 3.
The four-person group received an A on the challenge.
Prime picture: Leon Lei, who teaches information science within the school of training, is utilizing generative AI instruments to create thoughts maps and brief movies for college kids with totally different studying kinds. Picture by Lam Hei Chun for Microsoft.
