The Automation Paradox
By Dr Ioannis Glinavos, Senior Lecturer at the Westminster Law School
In a first for the #altc blog, Dr Ioannis Glinavos, Senior Lecturer at the Westminster Law School has created a short video using the HeyGen AI Video Generator. ‘Ioannis’ (the reason for the speech marks will become apparent if you watch the video) talks about how he believes that artificial intelligence is reshaping education and learning technology.
We’ve structured this blog a bit like an interview. Ioannis gives a brief written introduction to the topic before the video and then we asked Ioannis to answer some of the questions that the post editor had when watching the video to start the Q&A process. We would encourage readers to continue the Q&A in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
Introduction
Universities should not be afraid of AI. We have been handed a wonderful new tool. Think of it as a mechanical digger. Instead of a group of people with shovels trying to dig a hole, we now have a fast and efficient way to achieve the end product. I do not think of AI as a scythe that will ravage jobs and eliminate creativity. Innovations lead to opportunities (the automation paradox). Should universities be resistant to innovation?
Q&A
Q: You mentioned using Notebook LM to create an audio overview based on your YouTube videos, LinkedIn articles and an AI justice paper – how long did this take initially? And then how much subsequent editing did you have to do?
A: Using tools like Notebook LM and ChatGPT Canvas is intuitive and takes no time at all. Feeding in one’s own content and working on the results requires very little editing.
Q: You say that AI is making research information more accessible – do you have any examples of this that you can share?
A: ChatGPT, Gemini, Co-pilot and other AI tools make research much more efficient than searches on Google Scholar or looking at publisher curated databases. AI Assistants, like Notebook LM can then work through the results quickly and efficiently at zero cost.
Q: How do you know that your students have found your lectures more engaging since the introduction of AI generated voices? Do you have examples of student feedback you could share, perhaps before and after?
A: Students in real-time experiments with AI tools (like streaming avatars) do not seem very enthusiastic. However asynchronous content produced with AI (voices, visuals, content) is getting superior usage to wholly human generated content.
Q: Did you provide AI with the data to develop the practice questions and scenarios? If not, how are you managing the accuracy of these outputs? This is a concern within the wider sector.
A: All AI output needs to be checked for accuracy. However, checking by experts takes a lot less time than generating the content manually.
Q: Do you have examples of the types of interactive practice questions you are using, that you could share?
A: I have been running a successful newsletter for more than a year with MCQs generated by ChatGPT. See https://glintiss.co.uk/sqe-newsletter/
Q: Have you any thoughts on how AI might be used ethically? Again, this is a concern withing the wider sector.
A: Transparency is the key to ethical AI use. For example, here is the methodology I share which explains how I generate my MCQs https://youtu.be/b71oeaKoDZE?si=wsgHZgx7ZxJTuFf4
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