MIT's Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training

> In a listening session with instructors, we learned that some were considering using AI agents as research assistants instead of hiring undergraduates as UROPs. If researchers at a well funded institution like MIT are seriously considering replacing hiring undergrads with LLMs, I can just imagine how researchers at schools with less funding are open to it. I never did research as part of my undergrad (something I regret, but I likely wasn’t in the headspace for it back then) but my friends who did view it as a core part of their education and deeply helpful for future opportunities. I really hope schools come up with a policy to help discourage this.

I think this has been going on well before AI or LLMs: "A fundamental danger, as we’ve discussed, is that AI can allow students to bypass learning. Equally concerning is that students may internalize a transactional model in which assignments are outputs, teachers are evaluators, peers are optional, and knowledge (or an MIT degree) is an optimizable commodity to be acquired or produced as efficiently as possible."

I'm surprised at the negative comments here. I'm about halfway done reading the report - I think it's clear, well written, and quite frankly the opposite of fluff. A document like this isn't going to magically "solve" the use of AI in higher education. The purpose is to define a shared understanding of the situation across a large, complex organization, and set an initial direction and general shape for actions to take. It contains clear, specific observations of how AI is organically changing the reality of education. And, in my opinion, fairly clear high-level guidance on what MIT as an entity wants to do about AI, and what individual departments and faculty should decide on their own. A document like this doesn't need to be revolutionary, it may feel like fluff because no specific item in it is particularly surprising or groundbreaking, but the value is in having the entire document as a whole. And it is a lot more comprehensive and well thought out than what most companies can put out.

I think you can tell who still has the ability to read long form content by whether they thought this was full of fluff or decently actionable. I think the bolded parts of section 3 are definitely not fluff. I found the document pretty interesting.

This is a bunch of fluff. I hope at least the snacks and lunches during the discussions were good. "Guiding principles: Be bold. Be humble. Put humanity front and center. Lean into learning. Teach with intentionality. No one size fits all." "Recommendations: Adapt educational processes for an AI-aware world. Center people, community, and the residential experience. Build processes, teams and tools for continuous reflection, iteration, and improvement"