This fall, the University of New Mexico AI Steering Committee will be launching campus-wide guidelines and best practices to address aspects of artificial intelligence use that are considered “urgent,” including ethics and academic integrity, according to College of University Libraries & Learning Sciences Dean and AI Steering Committee Chair Mark Emmons.
The AI Steering Committee is made up of students, staff and faculty from across campus with a variety of expertise in artificial intelligence, and formed because of the large amount of AI use on campus without a coordinated set of policies or strategies to follow, Emmons said.
The committee was charged in late February by Interim Provost Barbara Rodriguez and will integrate AI efforts around campus with both a long-term and a short-term path, according to Emmons, who said the long-term path will involve a town hall that gathers students, faculty, staff and any interested stakeholders to supply guidance that may ultimately end up in policies.
Emmons said the AI policies will have three strands: learning and teaching; research and scholarship; and operations and administration.
Since University policies can sometimes take at least a year to develop, Emmons said that for the short-term, since UNM is lacking guidance on AI, the steering committee will be developing guidelines and best practices in areas that feel urgent.
“For example, we just recently met this afternoon with the Dean of Students Office,” Emmons said on May 14. “They’re interested in guidance for academic integrity and things like that, and so we will provide some initial guidance for things that are urgent. We’ll work on those over the summer, and by fall, they will be in place.”
Emmons said UNM had also purchased a license for a tool called NebulaOne, which is currently in the testing phase, but will be available to everyone on campus in January. NebulaOne allows users to build “custom agents” using models from companies including OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic.
“We want to level the playing ground so everyone has access to the same kind of tools,” Emmons said. “What we have now is a lot of interesting uses of AI, but not coordinated, and where our goal is to make that possible for folks to use AI in a way that’s guided by campus.”
Over the summer, there will be opportunities for people to give feedback on the set of guidelines, including for “AI refusers,” Emmons said.
“I know there are refusers out there who feel that we shouldn’t be using AI at all, both for academic learning reasons as well as for ecological reasons, and they make a very strong point. But I also think that we need to be preparing our students for the reality we live in, which is a reality where AI is something that is definitely there,” Emmons said.
Emmons said he thinks AI can’t replace students’ thinking and students’ work and should supplement and support learning, rather than replace learning.
“You have to be responsible for your own work, and if you’re using it in place for that, then that’s a big problem,” Emmons said. “It reduces the purpose of education … why pay for college if you’re going to have your AI do your work for you?”
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Director of Online Strategies & Academic Technologies Elisha Allen, who represents academic technology interests for the AI Steering Committee, said he thinks faculty are “adapting to a context where it’s harder to tell what was written by AI and what was produced by a student.”
Some students may notice AI statements in their course syllabi, while some may not.
Allen said that AI statements are currently a “recommendation” for faculty to include in their syllabi.
“One of the issues with AI is that it can be used to short-circuit some of the learning process, which isn’t really in the student’s interest, and it’s counter to the learning goals of the course,” Allen said.
The UNM AI Resources webpage warns that OpenAI collects a large amount of data from ChatGPT users, and that data can be shared with third-party vendors, law enforcement and other organizations.
According to the webpage, if students or faculty ask ChatGPT about sensitive or controversial topics, the data cannot be removed, even if the account is deleted. The webpage also suggests that faculty who assign students to specifically work with AI have an option to opt out.
“Whether you think it’s a positive thing that’s here or a negative thing that it’s here, it is something that’s present in our lives and it is something that students are using, faculty are using, researchers are using,” Emmons said. “Because of that, I think we need to make sure that our use is grounded in ethics, is grounded in the best practices for learning, and if we don’t do that, then I think we’re remiss in our duty as educators.”
Leila Chapa is the social media and photo editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at socialmedia@dailylobo.com or on X @lchapa06
Paloma Chapa is the multimedia editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at multimedia@dailylobo.com or on X @paloma_chapa88
Leila Chapa
Leila Chapa is the photo editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at socialmedia@dailylobo.com or on X @lchapa06
Paloma Chapa
Paloma Chapa is the multimedia editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at multimedia@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @paloma_chapa88
