Can AI and ChatGPT reshape academia? ASU believes so

Story by Jeff Fromm for Forbes

Editor's note: This story originally appeared in the fall 2024 issue of ASU Thrive magazine.

The winds of change are sweeping through academia, and at the heart of this transformation lies a powerful force: artificial intelligence (AI).

Universities, once equated with long-standing tradition, are increasingly on the forefront of embracing innovative AI technologies to enhance learning, personalize educational experiences, and equip students with the skills they need to thrive in the rapidly evolving job market.

In what ways will AI reshape academia to help prepare students to thrive in the technological landscape of the future?

Here are four primary AI impacts for today’s Gen Z students:

• AI is poised to radically transform academics and the way universities support student success.
• Ethical considerations like intellectual property protection and data privacy are forefront in today’s business conversation.
• Universities play a vital role in preparing students for the AI-driven workforce.
• Continuous learning and adaptability are essential skills in a world where students may have multiple jobs and careers.

To better understand how leading institutions of higher learning are adapting to AI and incorporating it in preparing students for their next opportunity, I connected with two thought leaders, including Lev Gonick, chief information officer at Arizona State University as well as Phoenix-based Applied AI expert Chris Johnson, CEO at LT.

As we observe AI fundamentally transform the way universities support students, help them succeed, and enhance academic research and business operations, it becomes increasingly apparent why there is such a need for effective technological support.

“For us at ASU, our core business is student success,” said ASU’s CIO Gonick. “We certainly think about the work that we’re doing here at ASU as an enterprise-wide venture, beginning with leveraging the use of generative AI — among many other AI technologies — to support student success. That’s the foundation of our commitment.”

Rather than dictate how AI will best be leveraged in the learning and research environment, ASU has looked to faculty and staff to lead in their respective areas of innovation for greater impact.

To launch the university’s recently announced collaboration with OpenAI, ASU has issued an innovation challenge for faculty and staff users to submit proposals for how to best utilize ChatGPT Enterprise for enhancing student success, forging new avenues for research, and streamlining organizational processes to support student outcomes. Gonick notes that over 150 proposals were submitted in the first round, and those under the most prominent consideration include use-cases dealing with using AI for operational efficiency and staff training, enhancing learning design capacities, academic writing assistance, and AI-assisted behavioral health applications.

Gonick noted that human oversight becomes as important as ever, to help ensure AI serves as a tool to amplify human potential, not replace it.

“While AI is very much a disruptive — and we believe potentially transformational — technology we’re also very much focused on the human in the middle,” he said. “Whether that is a faculty scholar, or a professional staff member, we want to remain focused on and attentive to student success.”

It’s becoming ever apparent that the realms of AI and higher education are becoming increasingly intertwined – in large part because many jobs in the future will likely be affected by AI to some degree or another.

More important than teaching students specific technologies, it will be even more important to teach them how to learn, using AI as an accelerator.

“A lot of universities are very cautious about their approach to AI partially because they don’t have an understanding of it,” Chris Johnson added. “But in terms of teaching skills, this is not the time to be cautious. You want to be educating your students so that when they go out in the world, they are best prepared and have the highest ability to compete in the marketplace.”

Gonick highlighted key concerns around protecting an institution’s intellectual property, ensuring data privacy, and implementing robust security measures. He went on to emphasize the importance of collaboration between universities and businesses, citing the collaboration with OpenAI, which ensures ASU’s data and intellectual property remain protected.

“What we know is that it’s really important, especially for a university or any large organization, to understand that its intellectual property is probably one of its key currencies,” Gonick emphasized. “Obviously the privacy of its employees, or in our case employees and students, is paramount, in tandem with making sure security measures are as robust as possible.”

ASU’s goal with the aforementioned ChatGPT Enterprise innovation challenge is to be able to provide ongoing support for use-cases while leveraging the institution’s knowledge core — the faculty, researchers and staff who set ASU apart from other organizations and institutions — to be at the forefront of discovery and implementation. ASU faculty and staff are leading the innovation, with ASU’s Enterprise Technology — the university’s central IT organization led by Gonick — supporting the secure environments required to ensure data privacy.

As AI systems evolve, the need for continuous learning becomes paramount. This includes integrating AI awareness into course syllabi and fostering academic integrity practices that acknowledge the role of AI in research and learning.

“It’s great that ASU has access to all these tools, now the professors have to step up and up their game on how to actually use these tools in their domain.” Johnson said. “They can’t really integrate generative AI into their teaching plans in a way that’s going to be useful for students right now if they don’t understand very good prompting techniques, ways to avoid bias and, and how to get the most out of the tool.”

As the merging between AI and academia continues to evolve, it remains imperative that collaborative engagement, ethical stewardship, and a steadfast commitment to human-centric values remain in focus. In negotiating the balance between technological innovation and ethics, it’s critical that universities position themselves to utilize AI for augmenting and transforming human potential. 

Jeff Fromm's stories have appeared in Forbes since 2014. He has consulted all over the world and has co-authored five books, including “Marketing to Gen Z” (HarperCollins). © 2024 Forbes. All rights reserved. Used under license.