){kind=logo}
){kind=icon}
){kind=logo}
){kind=icon}
The arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022 triggered multiple reflections throughout the year on the role that Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools will play in industry and people’s daily lives. On the one hand, there is the question of how work can be affected by these new technologies. On the other hand, some have a hopeful vision of all the opportunities that will open up from adopting these new tools.
According to Joanna J. Bryson (2023) from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom, the use of artificial intelligence tools in the next decade will become commonplace in people’s lives, especially in their work processes, expanding what it means to be human and our ability to solve problems. In this sense, educational institutions are intrinsically responsible for considering the acquisition and development of competencies associated with appropriately using this technology in their training programs. However, what are students’ perceptions regarding including artificial intelligence tools in their training and professional futures? In this article, we present a look at their perceptions and attitudes.
The incorporation of artificial intelligence tools also opens up opportunities for professionals in new areas of knowledge, such as machine learning engineering, deep learning engineering, robotics science, data science, AI product management, AI consulting (Verma, 2023), and AI ethics and computer graphics engineering (GradSirenInc, 2023). As we can see, the opportunities are enormous, but students must prepare for them, and universities must train students with the necessary skills to leverage these opportunities.
Artificial Intelligence Tools and the Future of Professions
The scope of artificial intelligence tools is not limited to certain disciplines or specialized tasks. It is feasible to incorporate this type of technology in practically all professions, creating new job opportunities for AI engineers, developers, and consultants who can integrate generative technology in areas that are not necessarily technological (Business Insider, 2023). Likewise, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF, 2023) Future of Jobs 2023 report mentions that the inclusion of artificial intelligence tools implies the necessary evolution of many professions and industrial tasks, including the automation of processes and, therefore, the disappearance of specific jobs, but also the development and creation of new jobs.
For the BBC‘s Margarita Rodríguez (2023), as the adoption of artificial intelligence tools progresses, new professional needs will appear, for example, prompt engineers, people who design requests or premises for the effective use of artificial intelligence tools; AI researchers, who focus on identifying efficient ways to use these tools to overcome problems and limitations they have in their adoption; and experts in natural language processing, who master linguistic models to support language-processing software development teams.
AI tools for learning
Like any educational innovation, artificial intelligence challenges teachers and students, who must adapt to a constantly changing reality; they must make the knowledge acquired flexible and develop skills to face the challenges of their future professions. Below, we share two use cases of artificial intelligence in the classroom.
In the “Keys to Happiness for Human Flourishing” course, I ask students to query ChatGPT to identify keys to happiness and the roles of various elements such as money, social relationships, employment, and play in pursuing personal well-being. Surprisingly, the AI responses are accurate and trigger the students to reflect before class. In their opinion, ChatGPT is an initial platform for analyzing a complex topic that often seems very subjective.
On the other hand, in the “Illustration and Sequential Narrative” course toward the Bachelor’s Degree in Digital Animation (LAD) at Tecnologico de Monterrey, students learn how to generate their models using Stable Diffusion, an AI tool to generate images. This tool makes their creative and artistic processes more efficient by helping them generate variations of their original sketches and providing visual finishes with different styles. Unlike the traditional process, where colorizing an image can take days, Stable Diffusion allows students to colorize their sketches and advance their illustrations in minutes, allowing editing and retouching of the final image. With this tool, teachers can generate images that help students with visual or conceptual references, allowing them to understand the implementation of professional industry techniques such as photo bashing, collage techniques, image editing to generate a final illustration, and matte painting, a technique for generating digital scenarios optimized by generative artificial intelligence.
Students’ attitudes and perceptions towards AI training and use
As part of a research process, a team of professors proposed measuring students’ perceptions and attitudes toward the training and use of artificial intelligence tools in their professions. Beyond identifying the possibility of including artificial intelligence tools in training processes, this study intended to assess how students perceived these institutional efforts.
To this end, the study involved 53 students (33 women and 20 men) from all disciplines and semesters on the Guadalajara Campus of Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus Guadalajara. The researchers applied the instrument “Attitudes and Perceptions of Students towards Artificial Intelligence.” In this questionnaire, participants expressed their attitude and understanding of artificial intelligence, attitude towards teaching these tools, and perception of readiness for critical use. This instrument was designed by Sit et al. (2020). It was previously applied to medical students at King’s College London and Business and Education at the University of Salamanca by Almaraz, Almaraz, and López (2023).
In general, there were three primary findings:
- Men achieved a higher mean in the instrument, highlighting their positive perception of the training to use these tools. Women also had a high mean but were more critical of the statement that every student or professional in their disciplines should receive training in this technology.
- Regarding the semester of study, we found that students in the initial semesters (first and second) had more openness and perception of the need for training in these tools than their colleagues in the fifth and sixth semesters. Interestingly, seventh- and eighth-semester students also had a higher perception than fifth- and sixth-semester students due to their frequent contact with industry and work environments.
- Finally, students from the School of Medicine and Health Sciences had better perceptions and attitudes toward the training and use of artificial intelligence tools than students from the School of Architecture, Art, and Design, who were the most critical of their professional adoption.
Notably, the overall average of the entire sample was high (3.75/5), so although there were differences between the participants’ responses, the study’s results could have been more comprehensive.
Reflection
Universities should be interested in including in their curricula the acquisition and development of skills associated with using artificial intelligence, which implies a technological adoption and a rethinking of the students’ professional training profiles. For this reason, it is relevant to promote openness on the part of the academic community because more is needed to acquire knowledge about using these tools; they must be incorporated into the new job profiles of any professional.
Training in the use of tools with artificial intelligence must include reflection and strengthening of the entire academic community. It will make it possible to defeat false beliefs, stereotypes, fears, and traditional perceptions that would hinder this technology’s great opportunities. Universities must be the first to be flexible and open to changes and deal with uncertain environments because the students in our classrooms will be professionals working in a complex future that requires training throughout their lives.
About the Authors
Sergio Palomino Gámez (spalomino@tec.mx) is a professor at the School of Architecture, Art, and Design on the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Guadalajara Campus and is an expert in Digital Art and using artificial intelligence tools for image generation.
Dr. José Carlos Vázquez Parra (jcvazquezp@tec.mx) is a professor at the School of Humanities and Education and a researcher at the Institute for the Future of Education at Tecnologico de Monterrey. He is an expert in educational innovation, social entrepreneurship, and complex thinking.
References
Almaraz, C., Almaraz, F., & López, C. (2023). Comparative Study of the Attitudes and Perceptions of University Students in Business Administration and Management and Education toward Artificial Intelligence. Education Sciences, 13(6), 609. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13060609
Bryson, J. (2023). La última década y el futuro del impacto de la IA en la sociedad. OpenMind BBVA. https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/BBVA-OpenMind-Joanna-J-Bryson-La-ultima-decada-y-el-futuro-del-impacto-de-la-IA-en-la-sociedad.pdf
Business Insider (2023). AI talent is in high demand even at non-tech companies. And jobs are paying way over six figures – up to $300,000. https://businessinsider.mx/ai-jobs-pay-non-tech-companies-how-to-find-2023-7/?r=US&IR=T
GradSirenInc (2023). What are the Top 5 Jobs in AI? https://medium.com/@gradsiren2023/what-are-the-top-5-jobs-in-ai-73c0fb9eb020
Rodríguez, M. (2023). 6 trabajos que la IA está creando y qué tipo de preparación requieren. BBC Mundo. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/ck5lkj34jyxo
Sit, C., Srinivasan, R., Amlani, A., Muthuswamy, K., Azam, A., Monzon, L., & Poon, D. (2020). Attitudes and perceptions of UK medical students towards artificial intelligence and radiology: a multicentre survey. Insights Imaging (11), 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13244-019-0830-7
Verma, E. (2023). Top 10+ Jobs in AI and the Right Artificial Intelligence Skills You Need to Stand Out. https://www.simplilearn.com/top-artificial-intelligence-career-choices-and-ai-key-skills-article
WEF. (2023). The Future of Jobs Report 2023. Cologny: World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/
Editing
Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Editor of the Edu bits articles and producer of The Observatory webinars- “Learning that inspires” – Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education at Tec de Monterrey.
Translation
Daniel Wetta
){kind=icon}
){kind=icon}
This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
)