Summary
Members of the campus community gathered in McKinnon Hall Thursday for a special workshop event to mark the launch of the Imagining the Digital Future Center.
During the past 15 months, the capabilities and capacity of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and others have expanded exponentially. So what will happen during the next 15 years with AI?
That was the question posed to dozens of Elon students, faculty and staff on Thursday afternoon for a special launch event for the university’s Imagining the Digital Future Center. The center will expand upon the work during the past 20 years of The Imagining the Internet Center with scholar-in-residence Lee Rainie, with the Pew Research Center, now at Elon as the new center’s director.
Source: Elon University Webpage
Imagining the Digital Future Center – 29/02/2024 (08:36)
Elon University President Connie Book talks with Lee Rainie, the director of the Imagining the Digital Future Center about the center’s launch and the upcoming research agenda.
OnAir Post: Launch of Imagining the Digital Future Center
Videos
Launch event: Imagining the Digital Future Center
March 25, 2024 (21:37)
By: Imagining the Digital Future Center
Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center was introduced at a Feb. 29, 2024, campus event in Moseley Center. Elon President Connie Book introduced the Center’s new director, Lee Rainie, who joined Elon after a distinguished career at Pew Research Center. Imagining the Digital Future is the successor to Elon’s longstanding Imagining the Internet Center, which began its work in 2000.
President Book & Lee Rainie discuss the launch of the Imagining the Digital Future Center
February 29, 2024 (08:36)
By: Imagining the Digital Future Center
Elon University President Connie Book talks with Lee Rainie, the director of the Imagining the Digital Future Center about the center’s launch and the upcoming research agenda.
See prom style Skip navigation Search Create Avatar image Vint Cerf interview with Lee Rainie, February 2024
February 29, 2024 (24:07)
By: Imagining the Digital Future Center
Internet Hall of Fame member Vint Cerf is interviewed by Lee Rainie, director of Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center. He discusses a wide range of topics about his current work, the opportunities and challenges related to digital technologies, and the importance of Elon’s new center.
Internet Pioneer Esther Dyson speaks with Lee Rainie
February 19, 2024 (13:45)
By: Imagining the Digital Future Center
Imagining the Digital Future Center Director Lee Rainie spoke with journalist and Internet pioneer Esther Dyson about her next projects and her thoughts on artificial intelligence. (Feb. 19, 2024)
Internet Hall of Fame member Alejandro Pisanty talks about AI and other tech topics
February 28, 2024 (24:14)
By: Imagining the Digital Future Center
In conjunction with the launch of the Imagining the Digital Future Center, director Lee Rainie had a conversation with Internet Hall of Fame member Alejandro Pisanty, who is Director General for Academic Computing Services of the National University of Mexico (UNAM), in Mexico City. He served the community as a member of the ICANN Board of Directors (term ending in June 2007), Chair of ISOC Mexico, and a member of the Board of Directors of CUDI, the Mexican Internet 2 consortium, of which he has been Founding Chair.
AI in Academia Webinar hosted by Elon University
March 11, 2024 (01:01:21)
By: Imagining the Digital Future Center
With new artificial intelligence tools launching and evolving at a dizzying pace, a panel of tech experts discussed the implications for higher education in a Webinar moderated by Elon University President Connie Book.
The March 8, 2024, discussion, titled “AI in Academia” Transforming Teaching and Learning in the Digital Era,” was sponsored by Elon’s Imagining the Digital Future Center.
The Webinar attracted an audience of nearly 150 educators from around the world. Ethan Mollick, a distinguished scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said when he introduced Chat GPT to his undergraduate entrepreneurship class, the students dove in within 10 minutes.
One of the students had a working software model up and running by the end of the first class session and began promoting it on social media. “He had venture capitalists offering him meetings the next day,” Mollick said. “By Thursday, everyone had used AI for something.”
Mollick said the companies developing AI tools don’t fully understand the capabilities and have not developed guidelines for use. So he says it’s up to educators to try to figure out ways to use AI effectively. “As these systems get better, we have to adapt in deeper ways than just, ‘us it/don’t use it.’ We have to be thinking hard about this because nobody’s doing the thinking for us,” Mollick said.
At the American University in Cairo (Egypt), Hoda Mostafa organized community conversations about AI through the Center for Learning and Teaching. “There was a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety and questioning about what does this mean for plagiarism. What is going to happen?
And what’s happened between January 2023 and today is that the tides have shifted dramatically in our faculty body,” Mostafa said. Mostafa said faculty in most disciplines at her university are looking at creative ways of integrating AI and “looking at assessment in a post-plagiarism world.”
She says students are using AI and suggesting new ways to use it, faculty are sharing ideas and trying new tactics, and the university has developed principles to follow. Every academic department has an “AI ambassador” who identifies concerns specific to their discipline. Mostafa said faculty at the university are empowered to embrace the changes brought about by AI as “a way to really change the landscape around teaching and learning.” Udo Sglavo, vice president of AI & Modeling at the SAS Institute, said universities will be forced to tear down walls between disciplines.
He also said the ability to use AI will be a required skill in the workplace. For some job functions, such as writing computer code, SAS is seeing large productivity increases due to AI tools. “But software architecture and software engineering is still something that the human mind excels in.
Humans still excel in critical thinking, and when it comes to emotions and interactions between humans,” Sglavo said. “Machines are not ready for that, and we can have a debate over whether they will ever be.
The collaboration between humans and machines is the way forward.” Imagining the Digital Future Director Lee Rainie talked about the study findings related to education. “Experts (in the survey) referred to ‘adjunct intelligence,’ anchored in artificial intelligence, as being everywhere,” Rainie said. “AI will essentially be a partner, now, in both intelligence and consciousness for lots of humans.
“For academic institutions, this is enormously challenging and transforming. Up and down the stack of education, new things are in play. Whole systems of conveying knowledge, inspiring creativity, assessing the learning process and conferring credentials is all up for grabs in this new world,” Rainie said. Mollick said he is confident education will work out new ways to address the challenges posed by AI.
But he said the bigger problems may come after graduation. “The way white collar works in America is an apprenticeship program, where you do basic work until you get good enough. (But now) no one is going to be delegating basic work to people anymore because they’re just going to be having AI do the work for them,” Mollick said. Instead, Mollick said universities are going to have to prepare students with higher-order skills and expertise for the long term.
Mostafa agreed, saying universities need to prepare students for the uncertainty and chaos that lies ahead in the AI revolution. Rainie talked about the potential positive impact of AI technologies for education, such as instantaneous feedback, more opportunities to explore issues from various angles and more personalized instruction. “Why not go to the edge and find new frontiers?” Rainie asked.
