Jan. 27 through Jan. 29, the Office of the Provost, with the program of computing and Information Technology Department, hosted the Summit on the Intersection of Liberal Arts and Artificial Intelligence. The event was designed to provide “the college community with an opportunity to lead with clarity and purpose as artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes teaching, research and creative work,” according to Kenyon’s website.
The conference took place over three days and featured speeches, presentations and demonstrations from a broad array of Kenyon faculty members, outside scholars, AI tools and programs. “Our objective was that we wanted to foster that kind of discourse around AI, so that there was room in this program for folks who are very pro AI. … And I wanted those perspectives to be in the same room, in conversation with folks who are thinking: But how does this undermine creativity?” Professor of Computing and Founding Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Computing R. Jordan Crouser told the Collegian in retrospect.
The event opened with a virtual keynote address delivered by historian of science D. Graham Burnett, which, like other events throughout the week, drew a small in-person crowd of predominantly faculty and staff members as well as a number of online participants. Perhaps fitting for the humanistic message that was to follow, all those taking notes in the audience left their laptops at home and came prepared with pen and paper.
Burnett began by commending Kenyon for having the courage to face what may be existential questions for education and the liberal arts head on. “I’m going to, at least kind of, tip open for us the core question, which is, what do we want from education and what can we hope for?” Burnetts’ answer to this questionL It’s found in our attention and how attention activism can help us push back, together, against those who want to manipulate and take it from us.
Burnett’s unifying call to the community was a three-step plan for ensuring that we protect humanistic inquiry and pride in the face of AI, which together make up what he calls “attention activism.” The first step is study, the English word “for the work of using our minds and senses on the stuff of the world to make ourselves, not to make new knowledge, necessarily, but to constitute the beings that we are.” Addressing issues posed by AI requires a commitment to study rather than the creation of new knowledge, because study is what dictates your relation to the world. The second step of attention activism is organization, or the rejection of the business model that commands our attention and dehumanizes us. Organizing for attention activism would be “where a bunch of people, highly diverse, get together, [say] you can not actually disfoliate the collective good out of our external environment. We won’t allow it.” The final pillar of attention activism is sanctuary, which is what Burnett urged Kenyon and all institutions of higher education to be: “Sanctuary is the cultivation of spaces that are protected so that we can deploy, activate and use our attention together.”
The first day of Kenyon Voices on AI saw perspectives from Robert A. Oden Professor of Biology Chris Gillen, Associate Provost Travis Landry, Assistant Professor of English Alyssa Quinn and Writing Center Director Anna Scanlon. Each provided a personal and different perspective on their pedagogy, from creative writing and writing tutoring all the way up to the administrative level. Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Jim Skon and Professor of Mathematics Noah Aydin also weighed in on how AI can benefit rather than undermine learning through their work with process-oriented guided inquiry learning, or POGIL.
Also mixed into the week’s programming were hands-on sessions with BoodleBox AI and the Research Chatbot Keenious, designed to give the community a look at what sort of AI could actually look like if it were integrated. “At some point we have to make decisions about what technologies we adopt and what technologies we build in house, and what ones we don’t use at all, but those decisions should be made with the consultation of the community,” Crouser said. “If we are going to endorse a technology, it needs to be in alignment with our institutional values. Our perspectives may be different, but our value systems are shared, so let’s have conversations that are rooted in our values.”
If there was any doubt about the summit’s ability to bring in a diverse variety of perspectives, the day two speakers — Crouser and Professor of Biology Joan Slonczewski — had a 40-year difference in experience at Kenyon. Crouser spoke about the fundamental question of trusting AI at scale and clarified that doing so should be a conscious decision rather than based on a feeling. He defined trust as the decision to stop checking, something we constantly do when outsourcing work to tools or collaborating with them. Crouser argued that like any other important decision, you must gather the evidence and discuss it thoroughly before you make it. He acknowledged that everyone in the community will not universally agree about AI, but still urged for everyone to think about and answer the question of how much to trust AI so that we can discuss it together.
Slonczewski provided a new perspective on AI and how it should be integrated into education. They encouraged listeners to go beyond the headlines that make AI seem revolutionary and examine just how efficient and effective AI really is. Slonczewski warned that assuming AI is inhuman can lead to losing our humanity and that students and educators need to be actively thinking about how to create partnerships with AI tools. This means developing foundational critical thinking skills before, eventually, understanding how to use AI to assist them.
The closing keynote address was delivered by Michelle Weise, an author and leading expert in AI, who in contrast to the historical perspective taken by the opener, looked to the future of work and student life. The address examined how technological advances affect the lives of the adult workforce, and called for a cycle of learning and work to be reinforced over time. In Weise’s view, the new hybrid technological landscape does not reject or threaten the liberal arts, but makes them ever more valuable, as the development of broad interdisciplinary knowledge and skills that are applicable to all work along with deep expertise in a more narrow one will be most important.
Although the summit, postponed due to inclement weather, took place over only three days, its broad and holistic approach to the question of AI is still open. “One of the reasons that we recorded all of [the talks] was knowing that many people who should be a part of that conversation would not be in the room,” Crouser said. “How do we keep conversations going beyond a one hour talk? … These conversations can’t be one-offs.”