Experimenting with generative AI in the classroom

As artificial intelligence (AI) challenges us to reimagine new ways of doing and being, Dr Marcel O'Gorman, professor of English Language and Literature, embraces emerging technologies and applies them to his pedagogy in the classroom. O'Gorman has published widely about the impacts of technology, and his most recent research focuses on how critical and inclusive design methods might help tackle some of the moral and ethical issues faced by contemporary technoculture. O'Gorman recently wrapped up teaching a fourth-year undergraduate course on techno-critical writing and design that focused on key issues around responsible innovation, such as algorithmic bias, conflict minerals and the colonial practices of big tech on the global stage. Students applied what they learned by writing and designing projects throughout the course. "They wrote stories in ChatGPT that tested the AI for gender bias. They generated images in DALL-E 2 that traced a racist history in the AI's training data," O'Gorman says.