AI has VCU divided as new regulations are released

Bri Stevens, Contributing Writer 

Governor Glenn Youngkin signed Executive Order 30 last week calling for new AI education guidelines and information technology standards to ensure “safe and ethical use,” and keep AI conducted transparently so it can be trusted, safe and secure.

Instances of “safe and ethical use” under Executive Order 30 include protecting teachers’ jobs against AI, barring AI from making decisions without human help and securing individual data.

Governor Youngkin stated in his press release, “My administration will utilize the $600,000 in proposed funds outlined by my Unleashing Opportunity budget to launch pilots that evaluate the effectiveness of these new standards.”

Jeffrey Kraus, director of executive communications in the VCU Provost office, stated in an email, “We are still reviewing the order and understanding what it means for VCU’s academic operations.”

VCU professors feel divided on the use of AI in the classroom. English professor Geoff Bouvier sees AI software in a far more negative light, but communication arts professor TyRuben Ellingson said AI is a vitally important tool.

“It’s the most profoundly important invention, maybe to ever exist,” Ellingson said.

Ellingson said he believes faculty should learn how to use AI.

“We need faculty who understand the tool very well,” he said. “We have to be involved in this. We have to know it.”

Ellingson said restricting the use of AI is problematic because it will be embedded directly into software.

“The idea that you could tell a student ‘don’t use AI’ is profoundly problematic,” Ellingson said. “Microsoft Word is going to have an AI assistant built into it.”

AI will advance human understanding of old problems and consider research in a new light, Ellingson said.

“Artificial intelligence is providing avenues to look at it in new ways or research it in new ways or come up with new ways to consider old problems, that’s where the real power of it all is,” Ellingson said. “I believe it will advance human understanding and knowledge.”

Ellingson said not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” simply because AI has a few unwanted traits.

English professor Geoff Bouvier said the opposite — said he thinks AI is the beginning of the end of human creativity.

“I think the use of AI in creative endeavors is sad,” Bouvier said. “I think that technocrats putting their money into technology to replace talent is very sad. Instead of using technology to replace the pencil pushers and the bean counters — there are a bunch of human jobs that no one wants to do that require zero creativity — but instead we’re trying to use AI to replace imagination and talent, which is absurd.”

AI-generated writing is easy to spot, as each student has their own style of writing that AI cannot mimic, Bouvier said.

“They either learned how to write with a standardized test and learned five-paragraph essays and mastered the art of the generic ridiculous sounding, machine sounding essay, or they plugged it into ChatGPT. Easily spotted,” Bouvier said.

Bouvier said professors who condone AI and claim it’s an important tool concern him.

“You come to a creative writing class, your writing is the product of your imagination, that is your human essence,” Bouvier said. “And to download that to a machine? It’s really an ethical issue. Professors who support the use of AI are essentially supporting plagiarism.”

Edwina Sesay, a student at VCU, said AI is often misused and taken advantage of.

“It has its advantages and at the same time it has its disadvantages because some students take advantage of the situation,” Sesay said. “They just copy and paste the answer without going through the steps, which is very harmful to their future.”

Garrett Crouse, a VCU student, said that teachers should take the lead with AI.

“I know it’s helpful to some people,” Crouse said. “It could be better used if teachers tried to incorporate it themselves into class.”

Paola Yepez Hurtado, a VCU student, said AI can help people understand concepts, but work produced by AI differs from human work.

“AI can help you in multiple ways, it can help you understand more concepts,” Yepez Hurtado said. “It shows that it’s something made up by a computer, and it’s not the same as from just a human brain.”