By Rachel Caldwell, Power2Parent
By: Rachel Arroyo Caldwell | Power2Parent
Educators have the choice to embrace Artificial Intelligence as a part of their curricula or risk alienating students from acquiring skills industry is increasingly incorporating.
An AI expert presented to a room of about thirty politicians, businessmen, teachers and parents at a Power2Parent seminar held at West Sahara Library Oct. 17.
Shubham Pandey, the founder of Pioneer Technology and Arts Academy, presented ‘Embrace Artificial Intelligence in K-12 Education: Preparing Educators, Parents and Students for the AI Revolution.’
His presentation, completely written using AI tools, spoke to the capabilities of AI as well as the common fears and concerns associated with its increasing use.
“If we use it in a fashion that is more constrained, than every teacher can have an assistant and every student can have a private tutor,” Pandey said.
These capabilities would change the playing field entirely, raising the bar on the quality of education that one teacher can provide to a large class of students.
Going a step further, current AI can enable a teacher to create a lesson plan, highly realistic voice audio, and video all created at home without the need to enter the classroom, he said.
Large language models such as ChatGPT and many of the associated tools are free and available to the public, enabling parents who are homeschooling or microschooling to leverage the knowledge of AI in these alternate educational settings.
Khanmigo, an AI chatbot that provides tutoring services, is one such tool. Khanmigo uses ChatGPT4 to interact with users either from a teacher or student interface.
Rudy Padmintuan, Chief of Staff of the Lt. Governor of Nevada, spoke to the example of a young adult he knew who earned $240k a year working from home in the field of AI with only a high school diploma.
“I think it is a disservice to our kids when we don’t let them know these types of jobs are available to them,” Padmintuan said.
Whether we like it or not, it is going to happen, he said, while highlighting the fact that there is no school currently integrating AI at the elementary school level.
Pandey’s charter school initiative will do just that. The charter was recently approved by the state of Nevada under Governor Joe Lombardo’s leadership and is slated to open in Fall 2024.
Pandey’s presentation hit on the fact that AI is acquiring knowledge at an exponential rate. The average American currently has a smartphone in his or her pocket with more processing power than it took American astronauts to land on the moon in 1969, he said.
With the increase in computer processing power combined with the rapid and unpredictable knowledge acquisition of large language models like ChatGPT, AI is the new Wild West of the tech world. It presents unique challenges, astounding capabilities, and nuanced moral dilemmas.
“Our AI event was a huge success. We learned about the potential and pitfalls of AI,” said Deborah Earl, Vice President of Power2Parent. “We are excited about the many new ways parents can access homework help through AI and use it to improve academic success for their students. We also learned about the economic impact AI will have on employment and how it is affecting the job market. We will be holding more events about AI so stay tuned!”
