On the second floor of Albertson’s library, dozens of audience members gathered to watch two members of Boise State’s award-winning debate team, the Talkin’ Broncos, discuss artificial intelligence’s involvement in education.
At around 4:30 p.m., participants filled the room and Allie Hampton, Talkin’ Broncos President, took the stage. To preface the event, Hampton described how the inspiration for the debate came during an advising appointment with Breanna Ribeiro, senior student success advisor for the School For The Digital Future.
“Debate gives us a really great framework to attack each other’s ideas [and] question each other’s ideas without making it personal. AI really needs that level of discourse,” Hampton said. “I wanted people to be more educated about the moral dilemmas of AI.”
The first debater was junior and Vice President of The Talkin’ Broncos, Jaxon Holmes.
Holmes took the affirmative stance on the argument, insisting that AI can be beneficial for education. In her debate, Holmes highlighted how AI has already become a prominent figure in higher education, emphasizing that 85% of students admit to using AI and 36% of professors reported seeing a decrease in workload when integrating AI into their routines. Holmes also highlighted a study by OpenAI that stated most college-aged students use AI to start projects or understand reading, rather than to have it write full essays and cheat on assignments.
Junior Adam Pendergrass took the negative stance, arguing that using AI in education is unethical.
Pendergrass claimed encouraging the use of AI in education is unethical and cited the use of the technology has been proven to decrease critical thinking skills, waste significant amounts of water and potentially discriminate while grading.
Hampton said this event differed from previous debate tournaments as speakers had two weeks to prepare their talking points AI, whereas the average tournament gives debaters an average of thirty minutes to prepare.
“We all split [the work] half-and-half, helping Adam and Jaxon prep either side,” Chloe Sellers, individual event captain said. “It was a culmination of all our thoughts.”
As the debate came to a close, Hampton split attendees into breakout groups to exchange their thoughts on the subject. Each breakout group had a member of the Talkin’ Broncos present to assist in facilitating conversation about AI in the classroom.
“We wanted to facilitate dialogue with students leading it, [with] staff and faculty both listening,” Ribeiro added. “We’re hoping to [take note of] what students are saying, and then how we can inform future programming.”
Kelly Arispe, launch director for the School For The Digital Future hopes for conversations to continue after the event and that students engage with the Talkin’ Broncos and School of the Digital Future’s future collaborations.
“This, for us, is a kickoff event. We’re really grateful for how quickly the campus has come around to make sure that it’s happening,” Arispe said. “We’re hopeful that this event can catalyze or initiate some opportunities for students to step up and be a part of the community in the school.”
