Title: AI Expert Reveals Top Tips for Students to Outsmart Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has made momentous strides in recent months as ChatGPT and other generative AI tools have showcased their new capabilities. These new tools can create written text at extraordinary speeds, from poems to movie scripts, speeches and essays.

For students, the stakes are even greater as they equip themselves with the skills and knowledge to enter a workforce that is constantly evolving and only just beginning to grapple with the effects of AI.

“I definitely think about it in terms of my children. I think about it in terms of my students,” said Nick Lovegrove, a professor of the practice in the McDonough School of Business who studies management and the intersection between AI and business. “I think it’s going to require responses at the societal level that involve regulation, constraints and guardrails because, frankly, these are the kind of tools that could overwhelm us if we don’t exert some degree of control over them.”

To get a better understanding of AI and what it means for students and the future of education, watch Lovegrove explain what AI means for students today and how students can prepare to succeed in a society filled with AI.

Learn more about Lovegrove’s own thoughts on AI and how he uses it in his own work as an educator — and what keeps him up at night about this new frontier in technology.

Q&A With Nick Lovegrove

What is your greatest fear about AI?

I think the greatest fear about AI is that it’s going to take over. It’s going to not just replace individual human capabilities, but replace human intelligence and run everything in ways we can’t control. I think all of us worry that we’ve unleashed some force of technology that is ultimately going to be more powerful than us and is able to control us. And that’s a scary prospect.

What is your greatest hope for AI?

The most hopeful scenario for AI is that it makes us better. It makes us better at our jobs. It makes us better at understanding the world and the universe and that it makes us smarter, more insightful and even potentially more empathetic because it helps us understand each other better. It can advance our knowledge and give us tools and capabilities we might never have dreamed of, and that’s a really exciting prospect.

How does AI help you in your day-to-day work?

What’s striking to me is how quickly AI and specifically ChatGPT have effectively become teaching assistants. They help me formulate my syllabus, the schedule of classes and the way in which I can structure the topics in my class. It helps me prepare assignments and get better at trying to explain complicated concepts. I’m excited about that because it’s a set of tools and capabilities I didn’t have access to even a few months ago.

Are you afraid AI will one day replace you?

I’m at an age where I’m not terribly worried about AI replacing me. I definitely think about it in terms of my children. I think about it in terms of my students. I think they’re going to need some help. I think it’s going to require responses at the societal level that involve regulation, constraints and guardrails because, frankly, these are the kind of tools that could overwhelm us if we don’t exert some degree of control over them.

Why do people create things that we may be fearful of as a society?

Typically we create things when we have the capability to do it. That’s just our nature as people to advance science and technology and then figure out how to deal with it, and that’s what we’re doing right now with AI.