news

Recently, Georgia Institute of Technology, an American university that ranks very high in science and engineering, has made new attempts to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) with education.

Arijit Raychowdhury, a distinguished professor at the college who oversees the college's education and research, put forward forward-looking insights that are worth reading. He pointed out that as AI technology becomes increasingly important, it has become a basic skill that every student should understand. It is a big mistake to ban the use of AI in the classroom. Educators have the responsibility to point out the correct direction for students to use AI, rather than prohibiting and avoiding it.

Therefore, Georgia Tech allows students to use AI in assignments and papers and has established relevant regulatory measures to prevent the abuse of technology.They also worked with NVIDIA to build a supercomputer platform that integrates teaching, research and practice - AI Makerspace, to provide the best possible conditions for engineering students to master cutting-edge technologies in the field of AI.

Professor Raychowdhury emphasized that students should use AI to solve problems in actual combat so that they can form a correct understanding of the capabilities and limitations of AI, and understand that AI is a cooperative partner rather than a tool to replace thinking.

In fact, it is not just Georgia Tech. Top universities such as MIT, University of Michigan, and University of California are promoting the application of AI in education. Top universities in China such as Tsinghua University and Harbin Institute of Technology are also actively integrating AI into teaching.

We have mentioned before that Arizona State University, as the first university to join hands with OpenAI, took the lead in introducing the GPT Enterprise Edition in January this year and encouraged teachers and students to boldly use AI tools in teaching and research. It can be seen that in the past six months, the attitude of the education sector towards artificial intelligence has undergone a significant positive change.

Arizona State University's promotional vehicle (with the slogan "No.1 in innovation")

I strongly agree with this shift.Professor Raychowdhury’s philosophy coincides with what we advocate: “heterogeneous computing between humans and machines”.

Currently, AI is reshaping the social structure just like the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, we must be particularly vigilant about the disconnection between school education and real needs, and re-examine the nature and mission of education.

In traditional concepts, education is seen as a process of acquiring established knowledge and mastering specific skills, and a system of progressive advancement is constructed based on knowledge and skills. However, under the impact of new technologies, this educational model has become problematic. When AI can quickly master and apply knowledge in a professional field, what value do experts who spend years learning, memorizing, and applying this knowledge have?

Therefore, it is important to see clearly that in the future, the competitiveness of individuals and teams will no longer rely solely on a single skill, but will be reflected in the ability to work collaboratively with AI, which is what I often call "human machine IQ."

So, where does “human machine IQ” come from?

First, we need to cultivate students’ questioning skills and critical thinking, which are the key to stimulating innovation and guiding AI to solve problems. Second, we need to cultivate students’ ability to mobilize “AI experts” from multiple fields to collaborate when faced with complex tasks.

In other words, what we need to cultivate are new types of talents with creativity, leadership, and the ability to efficiently collaborate with AI.In the past, it was “Learn math, physics and chemistry well, and you will not be afraid to travel around the world”, but in the future it will be “Make good use of AI in various fields, and you will be able to conquer the world”.

However, this means that sporadic tweaks are not enough, and education needs fundamental changes.

This does not mean setting up a series of artificial intelligence majors. Because AI is a highly comprehensive field, it is the product of the integration of multiple basic disciplines such as computer science, mathematics, and cognitive science. The threshold is high, and most schools find it difficult to provide sufficient hardware support and teaching staff.

To make fundamental changes,The key is to realize that AI, as a general technology, will be widely infiltrated into various technology industries in the future, and the threshold for use is constantly decreasing.Therefore, the key is to enable students from all majors to make good use of AI.

Then, the focus of teaching will shift from simply imparting AI knowledge to guiding students to collaborate with AI to solve specific problems in their major. It is like writing as many office operation steps on the blackboard as possible, but it is better to let students write an article.

Accordingly, the proportion of classroom teaching may drop significantly, and will be replaced by a project-based learning model, such as participating in scientific research, innovation and entrepreneurship competitions, engineering internships, etc. At the same time, the assessment method should also focus on evaluating practical application capabilities and innovative thinking, and the traditional examination format may no longer be applicable.

These are what we call new liberal education.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that the essence of education is to strategically cultivate talents for the future.

I often compare technology to a tank. The key is to launch a blitzkrieg, so it is crucial to clearly define the boundaries of technology.Those who can launch a blitzkrieg are the key talents.However, this cannot be separated from the supporting training and incentive mechanisms that enable students to conduct long-term and in-depth practical exploration.

For example, starting from the middle school stage, many schools in the United States have established "Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centers" to allow students to master basic knowledge while gradually accumulating the skills and psychological preparation required for entrepreneurship.

Another example is the top scientific research conference in the field of AI, the Conference on Processing in Neural Information Systems (NeurIPS), which for the first time opened a special session for middle school students to encourage them to participate in cutting-edge research and solve practical problems.

In comparison, China's corresponding measures may be relatively few and not systematic enough. However, we do not advocate the development of a similar Olympiad-like admission tool in the field of AI, which would unnecessarily increase the burden on students instead of cultivating their future-oriented abilities and interests.