Ohio University Says All Students Will Be Required To Train and 'Be Fluent' In AI

Ohio State University is launching a campus-wide AI fluency initiative requiring all students to integrate AI into their studies, aiming to make them proficient in both their major and the responsible use of AI. 'Ohio State has an opportunity and responsibility to prepare students to not just keep up, but lead in this workforce of the future,' said the university's president, Walter 'Ted' Carter Jr. He added: 'Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we live, work, teach and learn. In the not-so-distant future, every job, in every industry, is going to be [affected] in some way by AI.' The Guardian reports: The university said its program will prioritize the incoming freshman class and onward, in order to make every Ohio State graduate 'fluent in AI and how it can be responsibly applied to advance their field.' Steven Brown, an associate professor of philosophy at the university, told NBC News that after students turned in the first batch of AI-assisted papers he found 'a lot of really creative ideas.'

'My favorite one is still a paper on karma and the practice of returning shopping carts,' Brown said. Brown said that banning AI from classwork is 'shortsighted,' and he encouraged his students to discuss ethics and philosophy with AI chatbots. 'It would be a disaster for our students to have no idea how to effectively use one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created,' Brown said. 'AI is such a powerful tool for self-education that we must rapidly adapt our pedagogy or be left in the dust.'

Separately, Ohio's AI in Education Coalition is working to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the state's K-12 education system, encompassing the years of formal schooling from kindergarten through 12th grade in high school, is prepared for and can help lead the AI revolution. 'AI technology is here to stay,' then lieutenant governor Jon Husted said last year while announcing an AI toolkit for Ohio's K-12 school districts that he added would ensure the state 'is a leader in responding to the challenges and opportunities made possible by artificial intelligence.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.