NC West Virginia News

Two researchers from West Virginia University have initiated a program aimed at involving liberal arts faculty in discussions about the social, ethical, and technical dimensions of artificial intelligence (AI) in educational settings. Erin Brock Carlson, an assistant professor of English, and Scott Davidson, a professor of philosophy at WVU's Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, have developed this curriculum with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The funding will support a summer workshop where Carlson and Davidson will conduct AI training sessions for humanities faculty. These sessions will assist faculty in creating courses that incorporate AI elements. The researchers will also aid in implementing these courses and assessing their progress.

Carlson emphasized the importance of integrating humanities perspectives into AI research: “The humanities gets overlooked and underappreciated so often,” she said. “We are doing important, meaningful research, just like our colleagues in STEM and other fields.”

Davidson highlighted the potential impact on education: “It’s really about expanding capacity at the University and in the humanities to investigate the implications of AI or to actually use AI in humanities courses,” he said.

A team consisting of mentors and fellows from both data science and humanities backgrounds will support these interdisciplinary conversations. The initiative aims to create or redesign ten courses, inviting external experts to facilitate workshops.

Both researchers recognize varying attitudes towards AI but stress a balanced view. “AI is such a simplistic term to describe a whole suite of different technologies,” Carlson noted.

Davidson's interest in AI was sparked by an inaccurate AI-generated summary of his work: “It was totally wrong,” he remarked, underscoring the need for critical evaluation skills among students regarding AI outputs.

The program also intends to address environmental concerns related to AI usage, such as energy consumption and electronic waste production. Legal aspects surrounding AI use will be another focus area.

Carlson pointed out the broader societal impacts: “Because it has a very real, material impact on people in communities... That’s the value of the humanities — to ask these tough questions.”

As AI continues to evolve rapidly, Carlson anticipates broad participation: “There’s going to be a lot of people involved in this... We want it to be an open, honest and ethical conversation.”