AI's effect on students' ability to write, research

(NewsNation) — As a new technology challenges educators at all upper-grade levels all around the world, one Weber State University professor is embracing it.

Dr. Alex Lawrence, an associate professor at Weber State University, thinks the use of artificial intelligence should be encouraged, but with integrity.

“I think it’s a mistake to not do that; the genie’s out of the bottle. It’s gonna be this strange game of kind of Whack a Mole, cat and mouse if you will. That’s not representative of the real world,” he said.

Lawrence teaches a professional sales course, where he’s showing students how to train prompts generated by AI.

“You can’t just cut and paste into this thing, you’ve got to think through what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. As you get better at that, the outcomes are going to be better,” he said. “But what I’m doing in my classes, I’m having them present those outcomes.”

Lawrence is helping students think for AI or be smarter than AI in terms of what they should prompt the app to do.

“I’m trying to inspire them, and encourage them and teach them to use this tool that I think is going to be a big part of their careers,” he explained.

Lawrence said cutting and pasting text AI generates is going to be a “problem.” This is why educators are working to combat the use of AI on college campuses.

While there are still cases in that students need to use books and not rely on AI to complete assignments, Lawrence said he’d be “a hypocrite” if he told students they couldn’t use it.

“I just couldn’t look him in the eye and tell them this is something that you can’t use because you should be using it and I think they will be using it,” he said. “I think that’s what my job is as an educator.”