Humanist reflections on AI at Duke from APSI DGS Eileen Chow

As universities around the world, including Duke, race to adopt AI and responsibly incorporate this evolving tool into classroom instruction, thoughtful leaders take time to ask questions about what role technology can and should play in advancing the human condition.

APSI’s director of graduate studies, Professor Eileen Chow, recently spoke with Dr. Sarah Wike about the humanist perspective on using AI in the classroom, teaching what technology cannot touch, and how to meaningfully make use of machine learning tools.

In the interview, Professor Chow describes how she challenges her students with questions such as, “What happens when you give away the struggle of thinking? What do you lose when you shortcut the research or outsource the reading?” She recalls an interview with renowned Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, who observed, “Technology is just a tool. AI can replicate, but can it yearn? Can an algorithm understand the weight of a glance between two people who can’t express their feelings? Can code capture the way memory distorts and reshapes our past?”

Read the full article at Duke Learning Innovation and Lifetime Education >>