"We all need to get involved with AI now"
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Niklas Kühl deals with artificial intelligence (AI) by profession. But he is also firmly convinced that all teachers and students - regardless of discipline - should venture into the subject. He was now invited to the Bavarian Parliament as an expert on this topic.
AI writing tools have increasingly become the focus of public attention in recent months. That is why Prof. Dr.-Ing. Niklas Kühl, Chair of Business Informatics and Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence at the University of Bayreuth, is also a sought-after expert at the moment. He has been working on artificial intelligence for ten years, and last week he was able to discuss the results of his research with high-ranking politicians for the first time. Together with eight colleagues from science, he was in the Committee for Science and Art in the Bavarian Parliament. For almost four hours, the topic was "Opportunities and risks of AI in science".
"We talked about what skills our students will need in the future for the globalised job market," says Kühl. "I am convinced that we need to teach them to collaborate effectively with AI - across all disciplines." The students would anyway be engaged with ChatGPT and other AI tools. "If we don't walk the path together with the students, they will walk it alone." For this reason, Kühl also assumes that homework can be written with the help of AI tools as early as this summer semester - if this collaboration is declared accordingly and clear rules are followed. So-called "Rules for Tools" are already being created for the economists at UBT. Even if these do not necessarily have to be written down in the examination regulations, at least at the beginning, it is important to have a uniform understanding and framework for the use of AI tools.
"I think the first thing here is to find an agreement on how to deal with AI tools in the current situation. I think you definitely have to address the topic area," says Kühl. "I will proceed in such a way that I tell my students they may use AI, however, it must be labelled."
"That AI will be used in on-site examinations - whether oral or written - is not something to be afraid of at the moment. Basically, however, one has to ask oneself what needs to be tested and what needs to be taught - more competence teaching and critical thinking than rote learning, for example. He can also imagine an "AI for all" programme, which should address students across all faculties, but also teachers and administrators.
"We all need to get involved with AI now," he is certain. Developments in the field of AI are advancing at breakneck speed. A hundred papers are published on AI every day - and the trend is rising. "So it doesn't make sense to put money into AI detectors," says Kühl. You don't have to try to filter out AI, but learn to work with it in a sensible and reflective way. The keyword here is "calibrated trust". "In this context, lecturers should rethink previous forms of examination," Kühl also told the committee in the Bavarian state parliament. In particular, he sees it as the task of teachers "to adequately introduce their students to the use of AI writing tools.
Jennifer OpelDeputy Press Officer
University of Bayreuth
Phone: +49 (0)921 - 55 5893 57
Mail: jennifer.opel@uni-bayreuth.de