Generative AI in higher education. Big data, big promises, big disappointment?

Cormac McGrath, Associate professor in education and educational developer. Cormac leads two AI focused research projects, one addressing the ethical of AI in higher education, and the other on AI literacy in the context of teacher education. Both projects are funded by The Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program – Humanity and Society (WASP-HS).

Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots trained on large language models are an example of Generative AI which brings promises and threats to the higher education sector. During the seminar we will discuss two articles. Generative AI Chatbots in Higher Education: A Review of an Emerging Research Area is a review paper that addresses a selection of empirical studies on generative AI in higher education. In this study, we examine the emerging research area of AI chatbots in higher education (HE), focusing specifically on empirical studies conducted since the release of ChatGPT. The study takes a three-pronged approach to the empirical data. We first, examine the state of the emerging field of AI chatbots in HE. Second, we identify the theories of learning used in the empirical studies on AI chatbots in HE. Third, we scrutinize the discourses of AI in HE framing the latest empirical work on AI chatbots. Beyond the Hype: Towards a Critical Debate About AI Chatbots in Swedish Higher Education is a conceptual paper which identifies and wishes to stimulate critical debate. The paper considers generative AI as an emerging technology in higher education, and looks at AI chatbots through the lens of human–technology mediations and wishes to understand what may be lost be using gen AI chatbots in higher education.

This seminar is part of the series Högre seminarier i utbildningsvetenskap. 
Read more about the series here.