As I was leaving home to attend a recent HEPI roundtable event, my A-level-year-daughter asked where I was heading. On learning about the focus of the discussion, we chatted about the use of Generative AI tools amongst her peer group, and she wondered why my contemporaries were so flustered by this latest advance in technology. Her views chimed with the findings shared in a recent HEPI policy note which suggested that the majority of students consider it acceptable to use Generative AI as a support for learning. “Catch up, Dad”, was the encouragement I needed!
Thinking through the implications of the advance of Generative AI-powered technologies for universities has been a cause for personal reflection. I was amongst a generation of undergraduate students who submitted essays, and sat final exams, with a pen on paper; for whom a limited supply of recommended textbooks was held in the campus library with a waiting list deployed at peak study times; who subsequently experienced and benefited from new technology in the early phases of professional lives (in my case as a schoolteacher).
It is strange to remember a time before I communicated so habitually through email, the first time I used an academic search engine, or ventured into a virtual learning environment. For many, the daily use of video conferencing was only accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, and experimentation with Generative AI tools may have recently shifted beyond the most frivolous of hobbyist prompt writing.
