Despite what students may think, McMaster’s restrictive AI guidelines will best prepare students for the workforce of tomorrow

McMaster’s AI advisors have not had an easy job dealing with the rise of AI. When Chat-GPT was first released for public use, the university had to quickly throw together provisional guidelines which were mostly prohibitive of the use of AI. Out of nowhere, a huge threat to honest academic work became available to all students giving the academic institutions little time to consider how to respond.

McMaster’s response has taken time, but the beginning of this year has marked the introduction of guidelines no longer considered provisional.

These guidelines are unpopular with many and the consulting process created rifts between the McMaster Students Union and the university administration. MSU president Jovan Popovic suggested that students need to be prepared to work with AI in a future workforce in which the use of AI is prevalent. Meanwhile, the university was greatly concerned about the significant risks that AI poses to university pedagogy by undermining student engagement with their coursework and learning

The final guidelines have fallen firmly on the side of mitigating educational risks, without a single mention of the AI skills that might be required for the future of work. While this may disappoint student union activists who fought for more permissive AI use, I think the guidelines’ are best for students entering the uncertain AI future.

The guidelines’ ultimate goal is to maintain the integrity of the university learning process. This process is one based on learning the methods relevant to any given field of study, rather than simple content-based learning. These processes are under threat by generative AI’s capabilities to produce text indistinguishable from that written by a human, to analyze data and to interpret primary sources.

AI’s abilities to do this work convincingly represents a fundamental threat to intellectual labour. The MSU’s position, informed by this belief, is that students need to familiarize themselves with using generative AI in order to prepare themselves for a workplace dominated by AI use. But this fails to account for experts' varied views on what a future with AI might look like.

Without denying its potential to change the landscape of work, MIT Sloan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's business school, has discussed what the direct impacts on workers might be. It suggests that subject-matter experts and experienced employees will be increasingly required to work alongside AI, judging the quality of its output and the appropriateness of its use.

McKinsey, a globally recognized management consultancy, argues that humans will still have to check the work of AI to ensure it is correct and accurate. So, maintaining and fostering our abilities to write, validate sources and ensure the quality of our work remains essential. Considering the errors that AI can and does make, AI is best used for well-defined, job and company specific tasks such as searching through proprietary data. It is vital that we maintain and foster our creative and critical thinking abilities and not blindly trust AI with such important tasks.

McMaster’s new guidelines’ continued focus on teaching core skills is best suited to creating knowledgeable experts, ready to excel at tasks they are assigned and who understand where AI might help their work and the importance of verifying the accuracy of AI's outputs. Additionally the new guidelines’ promotion of the long, repetitive process of learning will create students prepared for a workforce defined by lifelong learning.

I believe McMaster’s current guidelines, old-school as they are, are in fact the best model for creating students ready to work alongside AI, regardless of how it may develop. Anyone can write a prompt for Chat-GPT, only well educated experts will be truly prepared for the work leftover.

Ahsan's platform focuses on holding space for the diversity of opinions on campus, environmental concerns and the transition from university into the workforce

There are five major areas of focus to McMaster Students Union presidential candidate Muhammad Ammad Ahsan's campaign platform including increasing opportunities for students to raise concerns to the Student Representative Assembly; creating more space for the diversity of opinions held by students on campus; reducing the university’s carbon footprint while also increasing McMaster University's impact on the world and supporting students in advancing through their education and into the workforce. 

Increasing opportunities to raise concerns with the SRA

On his first point regarding improving the ability of students to raise their concerns with MSU decision makers, Ahsan proposes an open-door policy for SRA meetings, creating an opportunity for students to speak directly with them. Ahsan believes transparency between the MSU and students is important and that the concerns and ideas of every student should be heard. 

Holding space for the diversity of opinions on campus

Ahsan also believes there is strength in diversity and he is committed to having dissenting student voices included in conversations around campus. He believes accounting for the range of opinions of students will lead to the MSU making policies that are more considerate of the diverse interests of the student body.

In an interview with the Silhouette, Ahsan also mentioned one of his initiatives as MSU president would be to implement a men's only time at the Pulse, either late at night or early in the morning. after a conversation with a student who signed his nomination form.

Addressing environmental concerns

Regarding the issue of the climate crisis, Ahsan includes as part of his platform the goal of reducing the carbon footprint of McMaster. He intends to achieve this end by working with the university and students to implement eco-friendly practices on campus. He also plans to implement various information and awareness campaigns.

Increasing McMaster's impact

With the aim of improving McMaster’s impact on the world, Ahsan is looking to create greater incentive for industrial companies to conduct workshops with students.

Supporting transition into workforce

Finally, Ahsan’s platform outlines his hopes to provide students with more certainty in their prospects for success post-graduation by implementing the aforementioned workshops. He also proposes further changes be made to academic curricula to better prepare students to enter the workforce.

Ahsan’s platform does not include references to consultations with any individuals external to his campaign team. 

Ahsan’s platform does not include references to consultations with any individuals external to his campaign team.

Ahsan concluded his campaign platform statement, with a note that after consulting with his campaign team on his platform points, they were given to the generative artificial intelligence software ChatGPT to produce his official written platform.

Voting for the MSU presidential election takes place from Jan. 23 to Jan. 25 using the Simply Voting platform. More information about the election can be found on the MSU Elections website.