Fact-checking artificial intelligence-produced information and finding ethical ways to use it in schools are some of the key discussions at the two-day EdFuture Summit at Mid-Pacific Institute.
Educators, students and organizations gathered at the private school's Mānoa campus on Tuesday to discuss the use and impact of AI, which has grown exponentially in recent years.
In fact, organizers say the event was planned using AI.
Mid-Pac President Paul Turnbull said the human element of AI is more important than ever.
"Our ability to be creative and work together to help human relationships grow and thrive is more important than whether or not an AI chatbot can do a specific thing to perhaps make your work more efficient," he said. "The more we can humanize schools now, the better I think everybody will be."
While he said AI can be used as a collaborative companion in helping narrow down sources for research, he cautioned that people should double-check AI-produced information.
"It is not the kind of thing that should be used to accurately find data and tell you exactly what the data is because there are times where it will hallucinate," he said.
AI-powered ChatGPT launched more than a year ago, and since then, more tools have come out, including Microsoft's Bing and Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropics's Claude, Meta Llama and more.
While there is still some skepticism about using AI in classrooms, many schools and students have embraced the concept.
Gigi Kiyabu, an incoming senior at Mid-Pac, said she first encountered AI during her sophomore year.
Since then, she's mostly used ChatGPT to help structure her essays, grade her assignments and prepare for the SATs.
"I'll just say, give me five problems on this subject area," she said. "It drills me with questions so that I'm improving my SAT score, and then it also gives me structure for my essays and the entire college process."
Kiyabu said she wants to study government, policy-making and design in college. She also wants to figure out a way to use AI ethically, but efficiently, when it comes to condensing legislation and the policy of testifying on bills.
These are among several topics she discussed with teachers at the summit. She said using AI should be a collaborative effort between students and educators.
"Students want to hear from teachers, and we're passionate about what teachers have to offer," she said.
Last year, Mid-Pac launched the AI Advisory Council, which is responsible for research, governance, curriculum development and community engagement related to AI.
The 16-person panel includes administrators and industry experts.
Mark Sparvell, the director of education for Microsoft and also a member of the advisory council, said one of the summit's takeaways involved more student perspectives on the guardrails of using AI.
"The students had strong opinions around the use of generative AI, broadly," he said. "They wanted clarity around exactly when, where and how their teachers were expecting them to use it."
"In fact, they were concerned about doing the wrong thing and using generative AI in a way that it turns out the teacher didn't want them to," he continued.
However, Tim Wong of the graphics processing company NVIDIA said that educators and other professionals have different feelings about schools using AI as a teaching tool.
"Hollywood did a great job of making us afraid of AI," he said, referring to the computer program Skynet in "Terminator."
But people had enough time to dabble with different AI tools and use them efficiently.
"I think now the shift from the initial reaction of fear and worry is now a tool," he said. "It's a tool that students can use, it's a tool that teachers can use, and the tool is to advance learning and make learning more fun."
