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For most of human history, we have used writing to document meaning. While our tools to do so have evolved, it has always taken our spirit — and hands — to write our experiences into existence. Soon, however, AI could be doing it for us.
The benefits of AI are overshadowed by its misuse. Conversations on the topic usually center on how it is the next destructive force in the world — but in the science fields, the help it can provide is too great to ignore.
According to Jeff Heys, the assistant dean of the College of Engineering, AI shouldn’t be something to fear. “I definitely think we need to be preparing our students for a world in which AI is good and to be a part of it,” he said.
For example, AI models have been very useful in categorizing and organizing huge amounts of data. AI programs such as Alphafold have been used to predict protein folding structures, a molecule all life needs to function.
Similarly, paleobiology professor Chris Organ said that AI is useful for geologists because it helps gather and categorize geographic information that otherwise would take time to synthesize.
However, our human expertise is still the key to ensuring good science. “If the AI just plops [data] in, then you’re at danger of losing all of that extra value, the hard work of understanding,” Organ said.
It’s important to note that the AI programs being used in these fields are working off of the thousands of hours scientists put into understanding the data in the first place.
“One thing I often think about is [that] the most powerful force in the universe is a clever human,” Heys said. “And I don’t know that an AI will ever be able to do what Einstein or Newton did.”
AI is constantly improving. With its help, we can learn more deeply about important subjects. Physics professor Tom Woods agrees with this sentiment. “There is resistance to every innovation,” he said.
I believe AI is facing the same resistance that computers and consoles faced in decades prior. Heys said he remembers when calculators were not allowed on exams. Now, students can bring graphing calculators into the classroom.
“I think [AI] will save us from having to do boring, mundane things, similar to the way a calculator saves us from having to do boring, mundane things,” he said.
Woods and I agree that, while AI is playing a role in changing student’s behavior, the negative impact of screens and social media on their attention spans is also to blame. The problem with AI is that it becomes a vehicle for hasty answers and easy shortcuts.
“It doesn’t mean the students are less intelligent, but that ability to manipulate symbols is on the decline,” Woods said. What concerns him most is the steady decline in people’s desire to read and write, which he has observed over the course of his career. According to him, students want to know the answers to problems, but do not want to learn the process.
Similarly, Organ says there are plenty of ways to use AI so that it’s not learning for you. “If you can use AI as a tool to help guide the research, I don’t really see what’s wrong with that,” he said.
At the same time, it’s important to remember that assumptions made by AI can be invalid, and without the user understanding how to solve the problem at hand, Organ thinks there could be a real problem.
Woods said that he ran a physics exam through AI to test its understanding of the subject. Its final grade was a C. This was after years of the program perfecting its calculations, yet AI is missing what makes us good students — understanding why the world works the way it does. After all, it’s up to us to invent creative theories and hypotheses.
“It is our job to nurture and encourage this creativity, and maybe we need to take it up a notch [because] now more than ever we have tools that will do [the mundane work] for us,” Heys said.
Woods believes AI is ultimately a tool meant to make life easier. “If AI corrects your grammar for an honestly made mistake, that’s okay. But if what is coming out of AI is not your thoughts, not your work, then you’re not learning,” he said.
AI has become a daily part of life and it’s changing the way we learn. Even if it has drawbacks, it is at least making us ask the hard questions. Like with every innovation, AI is a double-edged sword.
“I call it the chainsaw,” Woods said. “And a chainsaw can make really short work of very difficult problems, but it can also do a lot of damage.”
