A panel focusing on the challenges and the opportunities of Artificial Intelligence, and how to take it into the future, held during the 11^th edition of the WISE Summit, has seen experts discuss how the technology can be used to augment human intelligence.

The discussion was held at the two-day summit hosted by Qatar Foundation’s global education initiative at Qatar National Convention Centre, with this year’s event being built around the theme ‘Creative Fluency: Human Flourishing in the Age of AI’.

“How can we augment our intelligence without short circuiting learning?” Fernando Díaz del Castillo, Chief Learning Officer, Mentu, asked audience members during a session titled ‘Writing the Rules: What Does the Roadmap to Ethical AI Look Like?’

And Marc Owen Jones, Associate Professor in Digital Humanities and Societies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University – a member of Qatar Foundation – said: “Are the skills and things we need to learn changing? Writing has always been a fundamental skill in education, how will that be impacted down the line?

“From the importance of spelling, that’s taken a back seat now because of spellcheck, and even the development of calculators which allow people to do very complex equations - these have been augmenting our intelligence. AI is a different level, but the conversation isn’t necessary a new one. There's been many things that have defined and changed how we learn and teach.

“So I think it's important to reflect on that, how we coped with those challenges and how we accepted and embraced - or tried to reject - elements of those challenges.”

Thomas Banchoff, Vice President for Global Engagement, Georgetown University, spoke about the role of universities in AI moving forward. “We’re at the beginning of a revolutionary process – it’s about a year old,” he said.

“By their very nature, universities – and especially research universities – are dedicated to producing knowledge and disseminating knowledge, and as of a year from now, with the publication of the first large language models, we have a new creator, a new engine of knowledge, a new creator of the dissemination of knowledge in our midst. It's growing smarter by the day, and our students are adapting to it quicker than we are as faculty and administrators.

“On a pessimistic note, in the long run, it casts a shadow over the very existence of universities as we've known them. What is the case to be made for an expensive university education in this new world we're entering into?”

Experts also discussed what can be done now within classrooms as the world moves towards more automation, with Karim Ginena, Founder, RAI Audit, highlighting the importance of training students and educators on AI models, as well as the risks and limitations – when to use them, when not to use them, and how to integrate them into the curriculum.

Ginena also spoke about making AI ethical, saying: “Open that door for having the discussion, inviting researchers, inviting NGOs, inviting the public and private sectors, in order for us to get to some level of agreement.

“Inevitably we have to develop some kind of standards and some kind of minimum protocols, most importantly for future generations to be safe. What is the alternative? Let every single company develop a model and see how much harm it can cause? And then based on that, learn? But at the cost of who?

“I hope that this region [the Middle East and North Africa] can be a little more active in these discussions, so that values are not just represented from just a Western perspective, but also from more of a Global South and Middle East perspective, because this technology has the potential to impact populations globally.”

For more information about the WISE Summit, please visit: www.wise-qatar.org/wise-11/