<p>Bengaluru: As artificial intelligence (AI) begins to permeate every facet of academia, the traditional methods of teaching and evaluation must undergo a radical shift, prioritising the process of thinking over the final product. This was the consensus among a panel of academic leaders at the DH Bengaluru 2040 Summit held on Friday.</p><p>Participating in a panel titled ‘AI in Higher Education,’ experts delved into the dual nature of AI as a transformative tool for productivity and a potential threat to student creativity.</p>.DH Bengaluru 2040 Summit | Scale without sensibility creates stress, says Amanda Puravankara.<p>Opening the discussion, U Dinesh Kumar, Director In-Charge at IIM-B, used an analogy to explain Generative AI. "Think of AI as a car engine and data as the fuel. If the data is contaminated, the engine will fail," he said. He cautioned that because AI is a probabilistic model, it often provides answers with undue confidence, even when they are inaccurate.</p><p>"AI doesn't know how to say 'I don't know.' It will estimate an answer based on the prompt to find the result, but because different models use different data arenas, you will get different answers for the same question," Kumar explained.</p><h3><strong>Rethinking classrooms</strong></h3><p>The panel highlighted a growing concern, a decline in student creativity. Citing studies where student innovation dropped as AI usage rose, Gurucharan Gollerkeri, Director at MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences (MSRUAS), emphasised the need for AI Governance within institutions.</p><p>"At MSRUAS, we have moved from an island approach to an institutional one. We’ve introduced 'Computational Social Sciences' to bridge the gap between traditional humanities and data science," Gollerkeri said. He noted that the university has altered its assessment patterns. "We now focus on oral defense and independent problem-solving. It’s not about the solution the student brings which they could have gotten from ChatGPT but how they thought through it."</p><p>Addressing the risks of a widening educational gap, the panellists noted that while premier institutions are rapidly adopting these tools, government schools risk being left behind. Kumar revealed an initiative to train government teachers in mathematics and computational thinking to ensure that the next generation isn't just using AI, but understanding its underlying logic.</p><p>"AI is neither a magic solution nor a threat," the moderator, senior media professional Gautham Machaiah, concluded. "The challenge for 2040 is to harness its imagination while guarding against its pitfalls."</p>
<p>Bengaluru: As artificial intelligence (AI) begins to permeate every facet of academia, the traditional methods of teaching and evaluation must undergo a radical shift, prioritising the process of thinking over the final product. This was the consensus among a panel of academic leaders at the DH Bengaluru 2040 Summit held on Friday.</p><p>Participating in a panel titled ‘AI in Higher Education,’ experts delved into the dual nature of AI as a transformative tool for productivity and a potential threat to student creativity.</p>.DH Bengaluru 2040 Summit | Scale without sensibility creates stress, says Amanda Puravankara.<p>Opening the discussion, U Dinesh Kumar, Director In-Charge at IIM-B, used an analogy to explain Generative AI. "Think of AI as a car engine and data as the fuel. If the data is contaminated, the engine will fail," he said. He cautioned that because AI is a probabilistic model, it often provides answers with undue confidence, even when they are inaccurate.</p><p>"AI doesn't know how to say 'I don't know.' It will estimate an answer based on the prompt to find the result, but because different models use different data arenas, you will get different answers for the same question," Kumar explained.</p><h3><strong>Rethinking classrooms</strong></h3><p>The panel highlighted a growing concern, a decline in student creativity. Citing studies where student innovation dropped as AI usage rose, Gurucharan Gollerkeri, Director at MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences (MSRUAS), emphasised the need for AI Governance within institutions.</p><p>"At MSRUAS, we have moved from an island approach to an institutional one. We’ve introduced 'Computational Social Sciences' to bridge the gap between traditional humanities and data science," Gollerkeri said. He noted that the university has altered its assessment patterns. "We now focus on oral defense and independent problem-solving. It’s not about the solution the student brings which they could have gotten from ChatGPT but how they thought through it."</p><p>Addressing the risks of a widening educational gap, the panellists noted that while premier institutions are rapidly adopting these tools, government schools risk being left behind. Kumar revealed an initiative to train government teachers in mathematics and computational thinking to ensure that the next generation isn't just using AI, but understanding its underlying logic.</p><p>"AI is neither a magic solution nor a threat," the moderator, senior media professional Gautham Machaiah, concluded. "The challenge for 2040 is to harness its imagination while guarding against its pitfalls."</p>