Recently, there have been heated discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) content generation tools such as ChatGPT and GPT-4. For this reason, on March 29, the STEAM Education and Research Centre of Lingnan University, together with the Hong Kong Higher Education Convergence, the Hong Kong STEM Education Alliance, and the Office of Legislative Council Member Dr. Chow Man Kong, organised a seminar titled "New Thinking on the influence of artificial intelligence content generation tools (ChatGPT) to the higher education sector". The seminar brought together several experts and scholars from government, academia and research, including Dr. Chow Man Kong, Member of Legislative Council, the Director of the STEAM Education and Research Centre of Lingnan University; Professor William Wong Kam-fai, Hong Kong member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Associate Dean (External Affairs) of the Faculty of Engineering of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and member of the Legislative Council; Dr. Ray C.C. Cheung, Chairman of the Hong Kong STEM Education Alliance, and Associate Professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the City University of Hong Kong; Professor Lau Chi-pang, Hong Kong member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Associate Vice President (Academic Affairs and External Relations) of Lingnan University, Member of Legislative Council. All shared their views on how the higher education sector is responding AI tools and the insight to properly guide students to use them.
Group photo of the keynote speakers
Dr. Lam Sum, Council Member of Hong Kong Higher Education Convergence and Associate Vice President of HKCT was the moderator of the seminar. He cited the movie "Matrix" and Google's AlphaGo as examples of the shocks that AI has brought to our society in the past. Since last year, ChatGPT and its various applications have made everyone feel the impact of artificial intelligence more intuitively. Dr. Lam described his own experience as the shock of seeing dinosaurs when watching a Jurassic movie for the first time. He also mentioned that multiple AI tools including ChatGPT have brought challenges to many industries and skills, and the education sector is no exception. Therefore, the seminar today is very important as it sheds light on the education sector. He also believes that as time goes by and the improvement of teaching experience, Hong Kong universities will have better guidance on the application of AI in the future.
Dr. Lam Sum, Council Member of Hong Kong Higher Education Convergence and Associate Vice President of HKCT
Professor Wong is an AI expert, especially in the field of Chinese Language processing of AI. WiseNews search engine was developed by him. From a professional point of view, he believes that ChatGPT's ability to handle multiple languages processing is amazing, and the corpus model behind it is very impressing. However, he believes that the technology is still immature, and the content generated by it cannot be accepted as it is when it is applied. Taking Google Translation (Google Translation) as an example, the translation between English and English still needs manual inspection, and the same for ChatGPT. He also mentioned that ChatGPT can be applied for search engine, as it can teach people how to use the best keywords to retrieve the information needed. But ChatGPT is not ideal for generating content related to specific cultures, so we need a Chinese-specific AI content generation tool. In the field of college teaching, teachers also need to adapt to the environment and use it in a targeted manner.
Professor William Wong Kam-fai, Hong Kong member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Associate Dean (External Affairs) of the Faculty of Engineering of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and member of the Legislative Council
The STEM Education Alliance, where Dr. Cheung belongs, is committed to connecting the STEM education of Hong Kong universities and primary and secondary schools. With the rapid development of STEM education in Hong Kong in recent years, many jobs will change or disappear in the future. In addition, the application of teaching technology on campus is not limited to ChatGPT. Citing his earlier interviews with several university professors, he said that the academic community basically agrees and welcomes the application of ChatGPT, hoping to improve the quality of teaching and the efficiency of learning. Dr. Cheung believes that if there is a good idea, ChatGPT can help us apply it. It’s like wearing clothes: You don’t need to start by planting cotton seeds. However, he addresses that, in addition to teach the students to understand the convenience of AI tools, we should also teach them to understand the underlying mechanism and the application of AI tools.
Dr. Ray C.C. Cheung, Chairman of the Hong Kong STEM Education Alliance, and Associate Professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the City University of Hong Kong
Professor Lau summarised the policy responses of UGC-funded universities to the use of ChatGPT, which are currently generally conservative. He said that for the time being, he has not seen a situation where students can pass the exam by simply using AI. Teaching staff in university usually are alerted in case that students or scholars copying the content generated by AI. This shows that having technology does not mean that we can rest easy. AI is just one of many tools to help us study and research. Recalling when he was a student, Professor Lau said that he went to the library to check the materials one by one to write a thesis, while we just need one-click retrieval nowadays. This is the advancement of technology, which does not mean that we can become lazy, but that we have to work harder to adapt to the application of modern technology, and to improve the efficiency and output of our research. He also agrees that AI will be of great benefit to the improvement of the entire scientific research level.
Professor Lau Chi-pang, Hong Kong member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Associate Vice President (Academic Affairs and External Relations) of Lingnan University, Member of Legislative Council
Dr. Chow has been deeply involved in the field of knowledge transfer over the years, especially in the transfer of economic policy research to the SAR government policy, and the transfer of high-tech from universities to STEM training in primary and secondary schools. He used chatbots with relatively primitive functions and the development of AI applications in the Mainland as examples to illustrate the rapid development of AI technology. ChatGPT has many benefits in knowledge transfer: first, it helps primary and middle school students understand and distinguish the characteristics of AI more easily, helps students in language learning and trains their logical thinking and organisational skills. Moreover, the use of AI tool often requires certain assumptions, so students also need to understand the corresponding knowledge in advance, which can cultivate their spirit of scientific inquiry and autonomy in pursuing knowledge.
However, the content of ChatGPT is generated by internet data, and there may be data errors, or the risk of plagiarism and academic misconduct. Therefore, Dr. Chow suggests that to educate students to effectively use ChatGPT, they need to be specially taught to distinguish the authenticity of information and cross check the source and citations. He concluded that the advantages of the application of AI tools outweigh the disadvantages. He recommended that the education sector should learn and educate the use of such tools as soon as possible with a positive attitude, keep up with the innovation trend of science and technology, and cooperate with professional teaching methods to effectively transfer innovative knowledge to students.
Dr. Chow Man Kong, Member of Legislative Council, the Director of the STEAM Education and Research Centre of Lingnan University
During the Q&A session, Professor Wong pointed out that the application of new technologies in traditional fields inevitably has mismatch. Take the thesis writing as an example, there are complicated steps in which students can learn how to collect data, rationalise and write their own opinions, AI and traditional ghost-writing skip these steps. He reflects that it is important to set the purpose of teaching, so that students can really learn and apply knowledge from it.
One reporter asked whether the university would discuss teaching strategies and guidelines together. All speakers did not support this point of view. The universities and departments made guidelines based on their own disciplines and environmental considerations, according to Professor Lau. He emphasised the policy of "institutional autonomy" and believes that it is unrealistic to ask the presidents of the eight UGC funded universities to discuss and issue a unified policy. In the past, "whether calculators can be used in exams" has been discussed for a long time. So, one can imagine that it is too early to conclude the large-scale application of AI tools in examination.
In addition, Professor Lau also pointed out that there is currently no perfect measure to completely prohibit students from using or referring to ChatGPT, but the relevant guidelines will first deal with academic misconduct. It is also more appropriate to let the college staff decide whether to restrict students from using this type of tool. Dr. Lam agreed that more emphasis should be placed on how to detect whether students have plagiarised problems, rather than entangling in the use of tools. Professor Wong pointed out that plagiarism and using artificial intelligence tools to market technology are two different things, and we should not be completely relied on modern technology for learning knowledge.
Finally, using his own research experience as an example, Professor Wong suggested that the academic community should not rely on ChatGPT to generate answers, but use it to ask questions. Dr. Chow added that there are different learning stages in basic education, and the relatively elementary students may not be suitable for using ChatGPT, because students need to be able to do citation, and it is too early to apply AI in public examinations.
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