Benefits
Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the world around us, offering a myriad of benefits across various industries.
GenAI has immense potential to support enhanced productivity and time-saving efficiencies throughout the University. It can automate and streamline routine tasks and processes. This allows for more complex skills and strategic capabilities to enhance academic, administrative and operational contexts.
GenAI can accelerate knowledge development and innovative pursuits for all, including rethinking current ideas and processes (idea generation) and potentially brainstorming and defining novel solutions to institutional challenges.
GenAI has the potential to enrich the community experience by creating personalised content and delivering highly tailored services that align with individual needs, behaviours and preferences. New opportunities such as interest-based groups can also spring up and foster connections in real-time.
GenAI can advance inclusivity by delivering accessible and alternative formats for educational and administrative materials, such as real-time captioning and transcription services, to individuals with disabilities. It can also facilitate communication for community members through the translation of materials, live events and real-time translations, breaking down language barriers.
The ability for GenAI to process large volumes of academic and institutional data can help us reveal important trends and patterns. It provides valuable data-driven insights and recommendations to support impactful decision-making.
GenAI can foster interactive and engaging experiences for students and employees, boosting motivation and participation. It also helps identify factors contributing to attrition among students and staff, enabling the development of targeted strategies to improve overall engagement and retention rates.
AI enables the growth of operations and expansion of educational offerings efficiently, without a proportional increase in resources. It supports scalability and adaptation by facilitating online learning and collaboration, thereby reaching a global audience. AI-based automation and efficiency improvements reduce operational costs and optimize resource usage.
Risks
As AI continues to advance at a rapid pace, so too does the concern surrounding its potential risks.
Despite the personalised experiences that GenAI offers, there is the risk of eroding the human element that is prominent in traditional education and operational settings, potentially creating feelings of isolation and disengagement.
AI systems process large volumes of data, and depending on what data is fed into them, this can lead to risks of security breaches and unauthorised use of sensitive information. Individuals whose personal information may be included in these datasets may be uncomfortable with their data being used in this manner, and such use may contravene privacy legislation. Confidential data such as intellectual property may become public as a result of using some AI tools.
Despite the enthusiasm about GenAI, there are concerns that these systems might pose an existential threat due to their unpredictable nature and potential for autonomous optimisation. The rapid advancement of AI often outpaces current legal and regulatory frameworks, creating enforcement and compliance challenges. Thus, there is widespread agreement on the need for robust policies and compliance to manage these risks.
GenAI systems often produce inaccurate statements and unsupported claims, with a tendency to authoritatively suggest false information (hallucinations). Their lack of a confidence level for the generated information makes it hard to gauge its reliability. These systems can be misused to create false or misleading content, potentially undermining trust and credibility and manipulating public opinion. This can be reputationally damaging for the University.
GenAI models are trained on extensive datasets that can reflect various social baises and often use a 鈥渙ne-size-fits-all鈥 approach. These biases can be carried over into the generated content, perpetuating and amplifying existing societal prejudices, and failing to capture cultural differences and systemic inequities accurately. This can result in content that overlooks or misrepresents diverse cultural nuances and may widen the gap by inadvertently providing less value to equity-deserving groups.
The use of large datasets and GenAI鈥檚 tendency to replicate patterns from training data can result in unauthorised generation or replication of copyrighted or protected material. Other ethical concerns include but are not limited to the appropriate use of AI-generated content, research integrity, consent for data usage, potential impact on human creativity, and impacts on labour markets and employment.
The operation of large AI models necessitates considerable computational power, which contributes to increased carbon emissions and significant energy usage.
It is critical to maintain a healthy balance between adopting AI and nurturing the unique human skills that GenAI cannot replicate. If the University ensures safe and comprehensive access to AI tools and resources, it will help community members use trusted AI platforms responsibly, thereby safeguarding Queen鈥檚 data and mitigating potential risks. This requires thoughtful planning, ethical guidelines, and the implementation of robust governance structures.