AI Task Force Report Recommends Critical Embrace of Technology and Cautious Use of AI-Detector Apps
By Doug Most
The headlines have been blaring, with new ones coming every day: “AI Will Shake Up Higher Ed: Are Colleges Ready?” and “From admissions to teaching to grading, AI is infiltrating higher education.” And this one, “Alarmed by A.I. Chatbots, Universities Start Revamping How They Teach.”
Love it, like it, or loathe it, artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. Responding to that reality, BU formed the Boston University AI Task Force in fall 2023 to examine the impact of generative AI tools “on education and research, and review existing policies adopted by BU schools, colleges, and other academic institutions.” It’s an exercise colleges across the country have undertaken as they seek to put in place guidelines and policies for a technology that is still new and still taking shape. Inside Higher Ed recently reported that of “universities making AI policies, nearly half of institutions (43 percent) are working with a third party to develop AI strategy, while 30 percent are working with peer institutions or networks and 22 percent are working with professional associations.”
BU’s task force met throughout the fall and into this spring, consulting with AI experts, talking with faculty, meeting with industry leaders, and ultimately writing a report that was released this month.
Its title is self-explanatory: “Report on Generative AI in Education and Research.” Among its key points are that faculty should “critically embrace” GenAI (generative artificial intelligence), faculty should be expected to inform students in their syllabus of the course policy regarding AI, and all academic units should be expected to educate students on what AI is, what it’s capable of, and how it can best be used. Read the report’s full recommendations at the bottom of this story. Read the report in full here.
BU Today spoke with the two cochairs of the task force, Yannis Paschalidis, Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the College of Engineering, a founding professor of computing and data sciences, and director of the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, and Wesley J. Wildman, a professor of philosophy, theology, and ethics at the School of Theology, a founding professor of computing and data sciences, and chair of faculty affairs, Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, about the new report.
Read more at BU Today.
About the Hariri Group AI Alliance.