ORONO — With the rise of artificial intelligence, Maine educators are working together to figure out both the advantages and disadvantages of how the technology is used — and what it means for the future.
This month, the University of Maine hosted its second annual Maine A.I. conference bringing together experts, educators and others from across the state to weigh in on the topic and learn more about it.
Some of the takeaways of the conference, including thoughts on bias and the environmental cost of A.I., can be viewed online.
UMaine Professor of New Media Jon Ippolito, who was also a facilitator of the “A.I. for Teaching and Creativity” panel at the conference, said in an interview with Spectrum News that one way A.I. could be used is by combining it with work done by humans.
“We also work with students and faculty to say ‘hey, what’s an appropriate use of the tool, and what’s inappropriate?’ And is it possible to outsource to the A.I. bot something it’s really good at, while keeping what humans are good at in the loop,” said Ippolito. “For example, one assignment I give is the ‘A.I. sandwich’, where you have A.I. do the things that it’s good at, but you have humans do interviews like this, person to person. Which, you know, robots can’t go around and talk to people yet, and that gives you a possibility of sort of combining the best of both worlds.”
However, Ippolito said one potential drawback of A.I. in education is that it could take away from the skill-building that comes with traditional classwork.
“A.I. brings both promise and peril for educators and students. You’ve got the advantage of ‘wow, suddenly students can create things they couldn’t create before,’” said Ippolito. “On the other hand, there’s also the danger that you have this sort of knock-off experience, that you lose that sense of skill-building or personal growth that you get from a traditional classroom.”
Ippolito said it’s important for people to continue to consider how to use A.I. appropriately.
“There’s a real misconception that [A.I.] is like a calculator: ‘oh well, we had calculators, and they were disruptive, and now we incorporate calculators.’ [But] if you ask a calculator to multiply 12 by 69 it’s not going to give you the wrong answer,” said Ippolito. “But sometimes ChatGPT, or Gemini or Claude will give you the wrong answer. So, you have to know how these things work enough to know when to use them and when not to.”
Visit umaine.edu or ai-impact-risk.com to learn more.
“There’s a lot of University of Maine research into AI, but in terms of the impact it’s having on classes — it’s kind of a classroom-by-classroom basis,” said Ippolito. “Some teachers are still kind of like ‘I’m not sure this is good,’ and others are going all in. And what we’re trying to do is support everyone in their growth exploring upsides or downsides of these technologies.”
English (US) ·