Artificial Intelligence at the Gates: Lessons from a Shifting Information Environment

Author(s):
Ander Erickson
Associate Professor
University of Washington Tacoma

My research has focused on how undergraduate students are using online resources to study mathematics and my data was collected over the past several years. While students’ use of online resources has been expanding in a slow but relatively stable manner over the course of the past decade, the advent of the pandemic in early 2020 and the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022 has dramatically altered the way that students interact with these online spaces. I will be talk about our initial findings regarding the different ways that students make use of online resources and the new challenges arising with the advent of tools like AI. In particular, I suggest that a better understanding of the situations that trigger student use of online resources can help provide insight into how responsible use of AI can be encouraged.