The ethics of AI in Academia. Benefits and promise of AI. What should you consider? Pitfalls to avoid?

In this episode host Oracle Academy manager Tyra Peirce speaks with Mary Olson Industry Executive Director, Education at Oracle. Tyra and Mary speak about the ethics of AI in education and give practical advice on how to best use the technology while avoiding common pitfalls.

 

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Episode Transcript:

 

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;35;01
Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders. Of the Future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy TED Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce.
 
00;00;35;03 - 00;01;02;08
I'm your host, Tyra Pierce. In this episode, I'm joined by Mary Olson, executive Director, education at Oracle. Mary and I speak about the ethics of AI in education across multiple fronts administrative, academic and research. A little bit about my guest. For over 30 years, Mary has been using the latest technology to drive innovation and the education system. Welcome, Mary.
 
00;01;02;11 - 00;01;26;07
thanks, Tyra. I'm really happy to be here. So to start off, can you give me a little bit about your background at Oracle? Sure. I can tell you a little bit about that. I actually have a fairly short tenure at Oracle. I was recruited about a little over three years ago to lead the voice of the customer strategy for Oracle from A higher education perspective.
 
00;01;26;09 - 00;01;49;01
And I, I feel like I'm returning to my roots because I spent about 30 years at IBM before coming to Oracle. And my favorite job there was leading our education for North America. So I feel like I'm back home. I know today you're talking about A.I., and so let's kind of get a little bit more into AI. AI's constantly changing.
 
00;01;49;02 - 00;02;12;24
What are some of the ways you've seen AI used in education? well, you know, it is constantly changing and  it's kind of funny because people think about it. You hear about it now a lot and they think it's new. Well, it's not new. It's been around for a really, really long time that the use cases are expanding and they're coming out in exciting new ways.
 
00;02;12;27 - 00;02;40;12
So when I think about how higher education and education in general is using AI, they tend to fall into some buckets. One of the buckets is streamlining the administrative processes and basically the running of the institution because face it, a university era or a school district is a business. They have to hire people, pay people, report their finances, do all kinds of reporting.
 
00;02;40;12 - 00;03;18;05
So there are a number of use cases around changing the way the institution is run. And that's that's probably the most significant use cases right now. They're also moving into research. So we see a lot of cases where researchers are really accelerating their discoveries wildfire research, cancer research, drug discovery, everything by using the generative and the analytical tools, machine learning tools that come with AI.
 
00;03;18;08 - 00;03;42;02
And so that's a really growing area. Another area that's kind of unique and that I'm finding more attention to these days is in providing students with services. So whether it's trying to help them with career guidance, what do they want to do after they graduate? Maybe help them write their resumes and polish those up? We're seeing a lot of applications there.
 
00;03;42;04 - 00;04;14;03
Another area that I think is kind of fun is helping to make it easier to actually teach. So we're developing use cases where they're a teaching as