The presence of artificial intelligence (AI) on college campuses is a foregone conclusion—a recent report found that 93 percent of students use it regularly for coursework. By this point, it is no longer a question of whether AI tools will be used on college campuses, but instead, how they will be used.
Back in July, I reported that higher education institutions are finally embracing AI, and issued a warning to university administrators to get ahead of the curve and establish strong guardrails around AI to ensure its ethical use.
This month, I return with good tidings. Although the technology still outpaces institutional policy, my conversation with Josh Nesbitt, CTO of Genio, gave me more confidence that practical frameworks exist to help colleges catch up.
Genio is a platform that harnesses AI technology to enhance learning, rather than dilute it, offering advanced note-taking and presentation tools, an online note-taking course, and, most importantly, an AI Policy Template. Its mission is two-pronged: first, to demonstrate how AI tools can be effectively integrated into coursework without compromising the learning process, and second, to provide university administration with a clear framework for policy surrounding AI use.
[RELATED: Universities Are Racing Toward AI. Is Anyone Watching the Road?]
Genio’s Tools
Genio has developed AI tools to expedite and simplify the learning process for students without undermining the cognitive processes associated with information acquisition.
According to Genio CTO Josh Nesbitt, the platform’s goal is to “unlock better learning for everyone,” not just students, using “tools to help people learn in a way that makes sense to them.”
Some colleges and universities continue to—rightfully—express concerns about academic integrity and the loss of critical thinking skills as a result of AI use in the classroom.
“We see a lot of tools trying to automate entire processes,” Nesbitt told me. “They take the agency away from the learner, [so] learning doesn’t really happen.” The CTO vehemently contended that this was not the goal of Genio.
Instead, the platform aims to eliminate unpredictable friction—tasks that can be automated without affecting the underlying learning process. He assured me that the company really “think[s] twice” before implementing any feature that may take away from students’ knowledge acquisition.
For example, Nesbitt acknowledged the vital importance of note-taking to the learning and information retention process. In lieu of this, Genio’s notetaking tool doesn’t automate the skill of note-taking; it actually enables students to record a lecture or class while hand-annotating the audio with notes that make sense to them.
Likely the most serious concern regarding AI use on college campuses is its potential to facilitate academic dishonesty, ultimately resulting in the distribution of, frankly, undeserved diplomas.
Nesbitt responded to faculty and university administration’s consternation, explaining that Genio “really care[s] about […] people leaving with a valuable degree, and having really engaged with the content and having left a university or institution with valuable skills for life.”
“We don’t want to create tools [where students] don’t have to interact with the content or [where] they can shortcut to the credential. We really care about learning and about how people learn on an individual basis,” he shared. “We really aren’t interested in the ‘quick wins’ to allow people to shortcut [through] curriculum.”
Nesbitt did, however, strongly recommend continued discourse between the student body and the institution on how to create a positive and supportive environment around AI. Today, AI tools are being blocked from adoption because policy is too slow to keep up, to the detriment of all involved, the CTO expressed.
Genio’s Policy Template
To aid universities in facilitating dialogue around AI use in the classroom, Nesbitt shared that creating a “baseline for what stands as good AI guidance” was “really important” to Genio.
The AI Policy Template was created to “partner with institutions to help educate on what a good approach to AI would look like and force some of the important conversations happening on an institutional level.”
“We found that institutions didn’t really know where to start with how to provide guidance around AI. I think the absence of a policy [that leaves] students to figure it out on their own is not helpful,” Nesbitt told me.
Thoroughly comprehensive, the eight-page template contains two sections emphasizing “Human-Centricity” and “Academic Integrity,” as well as addressing issues such as data privacy and security.
“AI systems will be designed and used to augment human capabilities and decision-making, not to replace them entirely, especially in high-stakes decisions. Meaningful human oversight and intervention mechanisms must be in place,” one section reads.
The template also makes clear that “[t]he submission of work generated by AI as one’s own, without proper authorization or attribution as defined by the instructor or `[Name of Institution]`’s Academic Integrity Policy, constitutes plagiarism and/or academic misconduct.”
“Users are prohibited from using AI for malicious purposes, including but not limited to [list examples, e.g., generating disinformation, creating harmful or harassing content, infringing on intellectual property, unauthorized surveillance, academic dishonesty, violating others’ privacy, impersonation or deep fakes],” continuing that “[t]he institution will work to anticipate and mitigate unintended negative consequences of AI deployment through ongoing monitoring and assessment.”
The AI Policy Template is just the beginning, Nesbitt told me, serving as a “sensible and coherent stance on AI” that universities may then use as a jumping-off point and personalize it to their institution’s individual needs and viewpoint.
Labor Market Concerns
Concerns about the labor market often accompany the introduction of groundbreaking technologies, such as AI. Fifty years ago, the introduction of the computer was thought to place millions of jobs in jeopardy. Today, the same concerns are being elucidated concerning AI.
I thought it pertinent to consult an expert like Mr. Nesbitt on his outlook towards the subject.
In response to my query, Nesbitt expressed more optimism than most, sharing that he doesn’t think it’s going to “make loads of degrees obsolete overnight.” While he concedes that it’s too early to predict the future, AI will and already has “revolutionized an incredible amount of industries and approaches to work.”
He further posited that he believed AI would sooner be a “multiplier and amplifier of someone’s ability to succeed,” replacing soft skills and automating certain tasks to “allow people to focus on more valuable parts of those jobs.”
Minding the Campus contrinutor, Liza Libes, expressed similar views on the topic, reporting how “AI will never replace the humanities because the humanities, by definition, require a unique understanding of what it means to be fundamentally human,” and that “[w]hile automated and technical jobs may go out of fashion, it is likely that roles that rely on human interaction are here to stay.”
Ultimately, the implementation of AI could “both be a load of snake oil and the most transformative thing of our time,” Genio’s CTO told me, but “ignoring [AI tools] in the classroom and in universities is going to be really damaging for institutions most of all, he shared, because it just shows that they are fearful more than excited about this […] technology.”
Image of Josh Nesbitt, CTO of Genio
The one thing I have noticed, both as a student and as a teacher, is that note taking detracts from learning — it’s often a desperate attempt to get facts down at the expense of understanding their context.
Existing technology can take a 50 minute lecture and produce a transcript — a verbatim transcript of everything the professor said. So steno skills are no longer needed, nor really valuable anymore. Likewise typing skills — it was funny in 1986 when Star Trek’s Scottie picked up the mouse and tried to talk to the computer, now you can do it.
So I think of Allan Bloom’s 1987 Closing of the American Mind and remember that he would have written it in 1984-85 when personal computers were just starting to arrive. They were glorified typewriters with this lovely edit function, and spellcheck — nothing more.
Bloom was living in the age of bluebooks — what would he say about AI and the purpose of an education in an AI world?
Folks who aren’t in the classroom claim that, with a little education, students will use AI in a way that will enhance the learning experience. My perspective as a history professor is somewhat different. From what I’ve seen and heard, most students use AI to cheat, pure and simple. They take any out-of-class assignment, plug it into AI, and submit the results. There’s no research about, reflection on, or engagement with the topic. That’s why I no longer give out-of-class assignments. AI may have its place, but on campus I haven’t seen it do much more than destroy students’ critical thinking skills. That’s bad enough, but listening to naïve administrators, staffers, and faculty state that students are honest and mature enough to use AI solely as a tool is even worse because they should know better.
The solution to this is really quite simple.
Print out hard copy and/or photocopy a copy — make sure to keep an original copy.
With a black Sharpie, take out every fourth word — including “a” and “the.” Every fourth word.
Ask the student to read it to you.
If the student actually wrote it, he/she/it will be able to do so. We all have our own writing style and vocabulary preferences (as does AI) and while it will be an educated guess what some of the missing words are, usually a student can do fairly well.
If the student doesn’t, don’t push it — instead ask what the paragraph is about, and what the page is about — the “what were you trying to say?
If the student didn’t write it, the student is neither going to recognize the writing style and grammar usage nor know what the author was trying to say.