Why You Should Care About the Future of Machine Learning in Education
Advancements in machine learning have now made artificial intelligence easily accessible through open-source and cloud-based artificial intelligence systems, and its impact will be felt across industries and society.
“Think of having an intelligent assistant, one that can take over much of the drudge work that goes into any job,” says Lance Fortnow, dean of the College of Computing at Illinois Institute of Technology. “Whether it be composing emails, writing documents from talking points or summarizing documents into talking points, creating presentations, diving into data and summarizing important information, creating simple legal briefs or short summaries of any topic, the biggest impact will be the day-to-day reduction of the work we all do.”
As the future of machine learning starts to come into clearer focus, colleges and universities are now determining how to best implement these powerful tools seamlessly into their education.
Fortnow says that Illinois Tech will embrace AI and machine learning, using them to scale online educational opportunities and to help design lessons, assess assignments, and act as tutors. Using AI to assess student performance can help universities identify learners who might need extra support and personalize learning experiences, as well as to identify trends and insights that can be used to develop curriculum.
Illinois Tech students also will be encouraged to use AI and machine learning in their work. Fortnow and Jennifer deWinter, dean of Lewis College of Science and Letters, are co-leading a task force to look at the importance and challenges of generative AI in education and research.
“It’s too important a tool,” Fortnow says. “We can’t keep it out of the hands of our students any more than we can keep them away from calculators and the internet. But we can teach them to use it responsibly, acknowledge its use, and take responsibility for any work they build from generative AI.”
Ensuring that AI and machine learning are used to make work more efficient and are used ethically is a daunting challenge to tackle.
“The real challenge is that we’re dealing with a moving, accelerating target,” Fortnow says. “As I was telling prospective students last month, it’s not that the technology world will completely change by the time you graduate, it will completely change by the time you start here in the fall.”
Machine learning is incorporated in many academic programs at Illinois Tech, most prominently in the Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence, Master of Artificial Intelligence, and Master of Data Science.