Campus Technology Insider Podcast March 2024
Rhea Kelly 04:06
Did you get a feeling for kind of the overall state of AI in in higher ed from this survey? Because it kind of reminds me of a few years ago, when, when digital transformation was like a hot topic, and Educause broke that down into a journey of three stages: the, you, first you learn about digital transformation, then you plan, and then you do. So I'm wondering if we could apply those to what stage institutions are in when it comes to AI?
Jenay Robert 04:33
Yeah, I think it's definitely a useful framework in this context. And certainly at the more local level, it's going to be a great way to try to pinpoint where you are as an institution. In terms of sort of the national landscape or the international landscape, I think institutions are kind of doing everything at once. You know, AI, particularly generative AI, over the last year has come at us with such speed, with our, the way our students are using it, with the opportunities that we see, and with the risks that we see. So I think it's, it's just such a fast accelerating area that we're kind of having to build the plane as we fly it. We're trying to learn about all these different pieces and parts, we're trying to learn the definitions, we're trying to see the opportunity and understand the risks, but at the same time, stakeholders are already bringing the technology to action. So we don't necessarily have as much time to really learn, go into a deep learning phase, a deep planning phase, and then an action phase. We kind of have to figure it all out at the same time, which I think is part of the, for me, excitement of it. Like it's, it's so interesting and exciting to kind of see this different way that we're having to deal with this. And, but it's also, you know, nerve wracking, because some of these things that are happening are very high stakes and obviously at much higher risk for getting it wrong, since we have to kind of do it all at once.
Rhea Kelly 06:01
Did that, sort of, from that AI summit that you mentioned, did you get a similar sort of takeaway from the participants there?
Jenay Robert 06:10
Definitely. So I actually talked about these research results as one of the first sessions of the, of the summit. And one of the kind of big findings that I pulled out in my talk was that we see this really high rate of "I don't know" responses throughout the surveys. So it wasn't particularly surprising — I think I expected to see a lot of "I don't know" because this is, this is a landscape study, we are trying to hit a lot of topics, this is something emerging, and it's reasonable to think that many stakeholders would kind of not be in the know. But to have questions where you see 30, 40% of respondents saying, I don't know the answer this question. I don't know what's happening at my institution. That is, that's kind of striking, right? And so I brought that out to the folks who attended the summit, and by the end of the second day, people were saying, I think "I don't know" is like the theme of the week. I think it's just kind of where we are with this technology, in the way where we all just don't know so many things. And so that's one of the big values that I see in things like this research and going to AI summits and connecting with other people in the space, is that it makes us feel a little bit better, first of all, that we, I'm not the only one who doesn't know what the heck is going on on campus. But then it also gives us an opportunity to connect and figure out okay, well, where do we go from here? How, how can we become more in the know? So yeah.
Rhea Kelly 07:38
I guess getting a comfort level with "I don't know" is, it might be kind of challenging for, for some people. You know, there's a discomfort there.
Jenay Robert 07:48
Yeah, for sure. And we are all here for our students primarily, right? I mean, that's what at the end of the day, we want to do the best we can for our students. And so when we're so passionate about what we do, as everyone in higher education is, it's very unsettling to be in a place of "I don't know," because to us, every day is such an important day — it's a day that we have an opportunity to serve our students. And so to be in a place where we don't, we're not sure that we're doing that to the very best of our ability, that, that takes us off balance a little bit. So yeah, I think that's one of the ways that it's quite unsettling. But then kind of understanding that, in some cases, "I don't know" can, can lead to pretty catastrophic outcomes. One result in the report looked at the extent to which folks felt that the privacy and security policy at their institution was sufficient to address AI-related concerns. And for a large portion of stakeholders to not know that information could have very serious outcomes. It could mean people are bringing in technologies that are not safe, that are not protecting the privacy of our students. So it's, it comes at us in multiple ways.