Are you thinking about AI wrong?
50% > 100%
AI isn’t going to do your job for you any time soon (or maybe ever). It’s not likely to totally do any significant tasks for you. Unfortunately, the AI hype led many people to think this was the future — AI will just do all of those parts of the job that you hate to do. For me, this might be grading or creating exams (ugh). I call this 100% thinking — you expect AI to do the entire task. If you’re thinking this way, you’re thinking about AI wrong. AI doesn’t need to write an entire test for me to be useful. If it can cut the time it takes me to create a test in half, that’s a huge win.
Think about all of the tasks you have to do, but dread doing. Every job has these. Grading, creating exams, writing routine reports (that nobody will ever read) and emails, drafting policies … the list is long. If I came to you and said that a new magic tool could cut your time on these terrible (but necessary) tasks in half, you’d want to jump up and hug me, a little tear of joy rolling down your cheek. Well, maybe not, but you’d be interested, wouldn’t you?
THAT’S the way to think about AI. Can it reduce the time it takes to do tasks that are necessary, but don’t add a lot of value to your life? I call this 50% thinking. Don’t worry about automating the entire tasks, focus on using AI to reduce the time and effort these tasks take. Let’s look at a few examples.
When I teach undergrad classes, I give students an extensive study guide for each exam. I promise them that if it’s not on the study guide, it’s not on the exam. (The study guide essentially covers everything important in that segment of the course.) Auditing the test questions to ensure they align with the study guide is a pain. It takes 30-40 minutes, which isn’t terrible, but it still feels like a waste. AI can reduce this to 10 minutes or less. I upload the exam and the study guide and ask AI to identify any questions not covered in the study guide. I also ask AI to flag any unclear or confusing questions, which is challenging to do on your own. In a minute or two, I have a list of questions to check. So, instead of checking 50 questions, I need to check four or five and I’ve gotten back 20 or 30 minutes.
My current test bank is pretty good, so I don’t need AI to create a bunch of exam questions for me, but I might in the future. If I do, I’ll have the same mindset. In its current form AI is not capable of creating entire tests reliably, but it absolutely can reduce the time necessary to create a well-written exam in half (at least). I’m not going to give up in frustration because AI-written exams aren’t perfect. I’ll take the gains that I can get.
Back in my administrator days, I sometimes had to write reports that I was pretty sure nobody would ever read. They were box-checking efforts. But, there was always an off chance that someone would actually read the report, so it had to be accurate. So, I’d spend a ton of time on a report, grumbling the entire time about the pointlessness of it all. AI could have been a huge help. With a little effort, I’m confident I could get AI to write a solid draft that I would edit. Or maybe AI could just outline the report, write the summary, create any necessary tables, or perform some other task that reduced the time it took to create the report. Maybe a two-hour effort becomes one hour. Again, that’s a big win, especially if it’s not a one-time report.
There are times when AI can and should be doing entire tasks, but that’s the domain of experts in AI and automation, not the casual user. Full automation requires considerable specialized expertise and a lot of time and careful testing. Few of us have the skill or time to fully automate. If you do, great, but that’s not the reality for most. However, with a little effort and knowledge, everyone reading this is capable of using AI to significantly reduce the time it takes to do some things. 100% might be out of reach, but 50% isn’t.
I’m going to close by urging you to develop a coproduction mindset. What does that mean? It means thinking about AI as your partner in producing the creations required by your job. It also means thinking of AI as your colleague in developing knowledge, but I’m going to save that part for another day.
If you want to get the most out of AI, shed the notion that if AI can’t do everything, it’s not worth using. With some experimentation, I’m confident you can find ways that AI can save you hours of drudgery every week. You’ll have to decide whether to tell your boss.
If you’d like help in using AI to save time and effort, I’m available for speaking and consulting engagements. I’m especially good at helping reluctant faculty and staff more comfortable with exploring AI. If you’re interested, I’m happy to talk with you to see how I can assist. Just email me at craig@AIGoesToCollege.com.