BASE's policy on use of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
for learning
Introduction
Artificial Intelligence , or AI has over the past several years had an enormous impact in our society, and likely will continue to in ways we can't even imagine yet. At its best it is a tool for communities like ours to use to identify address and solve problems in creative and powerful ways - there is a real possibility that AI can be used to strengthen BASE's mission and core values, and have an impact on our world in ways that we believe are powerful and impactful.
At the same time, AI poses substantial risks to communities - especially to communities that are already under - resourced. Some of the companies that are developing it not only acknowledge that it will put millions of people out of work, but actually have that as part of their mission, as this creates cost savings for their clients. AI poses privacy risks to users; it can quickly and easily collect massive amounts of data on people, which can be sold to marketing companies or used by governments. AI uses tremendous amounts of energy: currently the amount of energy used to create a single image is roughly the same amount of energy used to fully charge a cellphone. Google has billions of searches a day, and the energy use quickly adds up.
BASE believes the most important and ethical action we can take is to educate our students about AI including:
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what it is and how to recognize it
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what its strength are and limitations are
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the potential risks, both immediate and long term
ways it can support student learning
What is AI?
According to NASA "Artificial intelligence refers to computer systems that can preform complex tasks normally done by human-reasonings, decision making and creating"
(https://www.nasa.gov/what-is-artificial-intelligence/)
AI tools - including ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini - are "Trained" to recognize patterns and communicate with humans by reading massive data sources, such as parts of the web. Some AI's are better at language, some are better at math and computational thinking, some at generating images.