Report: Training authentically skilled graduates in the age of generative AI

Inside Higher Education quotes Atri Rudra in a special report on how four universities, including UB, are incorporating generative artificial intelligence into learning environments to ensure students have constructive engagement with the technology. To Rudra, the inaugural chair of UB’s Department of AI and Society, the biggest risk of generative AI in the classroom is students trying to sidestep the inevitable cognitive struggle of learning. “Students and many folks think of understanding as just downloading information, but understanding material is really you interacting with that information—which means you need to struggle pretty much by definition,” he says. The report discuss how UB this fall launched seven bache­lor’s degree programs and two minors that merge AI with traditional academic disciplines such as communication and geospatial analysis.