What good is AI in the college setting? Don’t students just use it to do their work for them?

There may be some of that, but AI also has sound pedagogical uses, as Professor Mark McNeilly observes in today’s Martin Center article.

It has become increasingly evident that many college students have no idea how to carry on a rational discussion. Any disagreement often leads to ad hominem attacks or even worse. Therefore, some schools have begun teaching civil discourse. But, McNeilly points out, that’s easier said than done. Among the problems:

  • Students don’t know how to perform civil discourse, so having them roleplay and provide one another feedback isn’t the best approach.
  • Since conversations are practiced orally, the faculty’s ability to assess individual students’ civil-discourse skills uniformly is limited due to time and location constraints, as well as faculty-member fatigue.

AI can help facilitate instruction in civil discourse. McNeilly ran a pilot program using AI to guide students through rational discussion of two controversial topics: abortion and affirmative action. The results were good. Among the benefits:

  • AI allows student to speak freely: Because the student is not interacting with a person, he or she can feel freer to express his or her true thoughts and feelings and get feedback on them.
  • AI is more reliable than having two students roleplay: AI serves as a more reliable practice partner compared to peers, offering informed, consistent responses and modeling effective constructive discourse.

Since uncivil discourse is one of the key tactics of the left, this is encouraging.