Artificial intelligence (AI), a transformative technological force that has continued evolving over the past seven decades, has manifested in remarkable innovations, ranging from automated vacuum cleaners to compact virtual assistants. Since its inception in the 1950s, AI has left an indelible mark on our lives, revolutionizing how we work, interact, and solve complex problems. In this exploration, the Program for Learning and Community Engagement: Ethics of AI Series seminar delved into the evolution and impact of artificial intelligence by guest speaker tracing its journey from its budding stages to the cutting-edge applications that have become integral to our daily existence.

The Program for Learning and Community Engagement is co-sponsored by the Office for Teaching and Faculty Advancement and the Technology Innovations and Digital Education. The departments brought in a guest speaker, Jerry Sheehan, current Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at San Diego State University (SDSU). In the information technology division, he oversees deploying infrastructure and services and supporting the university’s learning and outreach.

Jerry Sheehan opened up the seminar into basic terminology and concepts about the brief history of generative artificial intelligence from its inception to the breakthrough in 2023 with the notable company OpenAi, the creators of ChatGPT. The core concept of artificial intelligence is based on the components of language models and computer sciences with a principle that human intelligence can be defined in a way that a machine can imitate and engage in tasks known as the ‘Imitation Game’ coined by Alan Turig, one of the founding fathers behind machine learning and intelligence. There are three concepts from the presentations shown to attendees, ‘The Jagged Frontier,’ the adoption of generative artificial intelligence among users, and autopilot.

The ‘Jagged Frontier’ is an experiment that reported evidence of the effects of AI and the knowledge of workers, productivity, and quality, published by the Harvard Business School, Technology and Operations Management. The study was of two groups. One used ChatGPT AI and the other as the control, and they reported that the capabilities of ChatGPT AI created a “jagged technological frontier” where AI can quickly do some tasks. Some things are outside of the capabilities of the current AI. It was reported that the AI group had a 40% higher quality than the control group and consultants. During the significant year of generative AI, ChatGPT reached one million users in five days in comparison to other media companies, which has the highest adoption rate among people globally training the AI by machine learning, and the up-and-down arrow when information presented by AI as factual, which may be incorrect or incomprehensible to humans.

Mr. Sheehan surveyed SDSU student population, which studied approximately 32,700 students and received an estimated 25% of students providing feedback on what tools they used to identify students’ attitudes and needs with generative AI, not excluding ChatGPT. While keeping students’ identities anonymous, there were categories that they could place themselves under, like their disciplines and age demographics. Among the qualitative research, SDSU students were concerned about being flagged for academic dishonesty while their peers were actively committing academic dishonesty, how that affects the trust and power dynamic there with faculty. Some students were also concerned that it would give others an advantage and put them at a disadvantage because of the accessibility of these tools, or that having access to these tools would make the individual’s performance decrease which leads to autopilot. The autopilot feeling said by Mr. Sheehan is like “ falling asleep at the wheel… the machine can only imitate it is not actually thinking”.

“Don’t ask and don’t, AI’’ said Mr. Sheehan. “The conscious feeling among faculty and administration of knowing that students are utilizing AI, but not saying anything could lead to a dangerous situation by not acknowledging it, and [we] can start with an open conversation about generative AI” said Mr. Sheehan. AI is a nuanced complex subject with no one-fit policy or corrective action to accommodate the vast amount of variables because among all the disciplines they have different attitudes and ways they can utilize AI. At the end of the talk, the one-word strategy is to engage with the unknowing parts of generative AI.