The frenzy of excitement surrounding ChatGPT has led to “enthusiastic experimentation” that might be opening universities up to risks they are not in a position to fully understand, experts in digital learning have warned.
The potential uses and abuses of generative AI tools has provoked lively debate within higher education in recent months, with a particular focus on how the new technology will challenge and change modes of assessment.
However, speaking at the Digital Universities UK event, held by Times Higher Education in partnership with the University of Leeds, Stuart Allan, director of digital learning at Arden University, said that this was “only a problem if your assessment is designed for recall and summarisation”.
Of greater concern, he argued, was that “the legal and policy framework hasn’t really caught up with the technology yet. We are in quite a dangerous position at the moment, where technologies are being adopted without the implications being thought through. What we will see in the next six to 12 months is a rowing back on some aspects of that.”
