Vision

Honoring human dignity, embracing transformational learning and meaningful work, and advancing the ethical pursuit of knowledge can ground our uses of GAI such that we realize its revolutionary potential for good without losing sight of our human and educational purpose. 

INTRODUCTION

Wake Forest University’s strategic framework states that “Our motto, Pro Humanitate, calls upon the entire University community to engage in the fundamental questions about what it means to be human.” This introductory call to the Wake Forest community could not be more relevant to our evolving relationship with Generative Artificial Intelligence technologies. Though Artificial Intelligence and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) have a long history of development, they have only recently exploded in their generative capacity and public availability. Whether enthusiastically embraced, reluctantly accepted, or doggedly villainized, GAI is now entrenched in the worlds of learning, work, and creativity. As these platforms proliferate, educational institutions are grappling with new challenges that disrupt traditional practices of teaching and learning. Faculty and students alike are navigating a changing landscape for learning, for academic expectations of original work and robust citation, and for participation in the production and exchange of ideas and artistic expression. Furthermore, the evolving nature of work in a GAI-enriched world also requires that students be adept in using these new technologies. If Wake Forest University is to deliver on our mission to honor the ideals of liberal learning and prepare students for the professional careers they desire, we must ensure their readiness to learn through and innovate with GAI and other inevitable advancements in programming and computing.

Unquestionably, this moment demands deep examination of the ethics and implications of GAI for the pursuit of critical thinking, intellectual development, and informed civic action. In this moment of seismic shifting, the Wake Forest University academic community must position itself to take an informed, critical approach to AI for humanity (Pro Humanitate) – one that encourages experimentation and innovation, demands critique, increases transparency and accountability, and prioritizes human rights.

The Artificial Intelligence Working Group for Academics met throughout the 2023-2024 academic year to discuss the risks and opportunities associated with GAI in teaching, learning, and research and its relationship to Wake Forest’s mission and goals. In what follows, we briefly review some impacts of GAI on Wake Forest’s educational enterprise, articulate principles based on our mission and values to guide our practices for engaging with GAI, and offer specific recommendations for maximizing the benefits of this technology while mitigating the likely harms associated with it. 

Dedicated attention to using GAI technologies in our academic work of teaching, learning, research, and creative expression advances the aims of Wake Forest’s Strategic Framework. For a Community of Learning, this effort develops “knowledge, skills and values that enable [students] to critically examine, reflect on and embody Pro Humanitate” (Aim 1.3) and prepares students “for personal and professional success in a rapidly evolving society” (Aim 1.2). A focus on GAI technologies also advances our Community of Inquiry by “generating new knowledge through research, scholarship, and creative work (Aim 2.1) and “strengthening areas of excellence in research that cross academic boundaries to address issues of broad societal impact’ (Aim 2.2), positioning Wake Forest as a thought leader in Emerging and Future Technologies.

CONTEXT AND CONCERNS

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) refers to a class of machine learning models designed to produce new, multi-modal content, such as text, images, music, or even computer code, based on patterns in the data on which they have been trained. Unlike more traditional computing systems that follow pre-defined rules to perform tasks, generative AI produces new outputs by running inputs through complex algorithms developed by applying deep learning techniques to vast datasets. For instance, large language models such as GPT-4 can generate coherent and contextually relevant text by predicting the next word in a sequence based on the patterns it has learned from an extensive corpus of written language. 

Generative AI presents many possibilities–especially for those equipped to use it well–for enhanced learning, increased efficiency, and improved accessibility for users with a diverse set of needs. GAI can supplement learner-centered instruction by providing tools for practicing skills and testing understanding, as well as tutoring suited to individual needs. It can routinize basic functions such as coding, analyzing large datasets, and proofreading so that users can focus their efforts on higher-order cognitive tasks. Expanded accessibility becomes possible through GAI that improves automated transcripts, captioning, image and audio descriptions, translations, and other such assistive tools. Having all students learn to partner with AI and to produce quality outcomes through skilled user oversight increases options and opportunities for innovation, creativity, equity, and the public good. 

At the same time, and not surprisingly, with these possibilities come inherent risks–risks such as overreliance on the technology to the detriment of individuals’ cognitive, interpersonal, and ethical development; infringement on individuals’ rights relative to data security and copyright protections; and the further entrenchment of biases and discrimination encoded in much of the source material for machine learning. The ease and proficiency with which GAI completes tasks can foster a sense of dependence in users who are under-prepared or unpracticed in the cognitive work of analysis, interpretation, evaluation, argumentation, and deliberation necessary to guide high-quality GAI output. Such overuse undermines the vital effort to facilitate human development in the intellectual, psychological, interpersonal, ethical, and creative realms. In other words, indiscriminate and uncritical use of GAI hinders the whole-person approach to learning and growth at the heart of Wake Forest’s liberal arts education. 

An informed and discerning approach for the University to these possibilities and problems will neither rush headlong into embracing GAI nor stubbornly resist engagement with it. Such an approach cannot be narrowly prescriptive, given the speed at which the technology is developing and improving. Nor, however, should it be indiscriminately permissive. Guidelines are needed, rooted in Wake Forest’s shared principles and mission for liberal arts education, professional training, and the advancement of learning in the fields of human knowledge.

¹ distinct from the Administrative AI working group
² See working group membership at the end of this document.

University Guidance and Expectations

The AI Working Group for Academics asks the university to adopt the following statement of principles and to pursue the recommendations listed below as a framework for using GAI in academic work.  

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

As members of the Wake Forest University community and affirming Pro Humanitate, we commit to engaging GAI in ways that honor the dignity of all people, that advance transformative learning and meaningful work, and that advance the ethical pursuit of knowledge in support of human flourishing. These mutually reinforcing principles help to ensure that our uses of GAI–uses that are sure to vary and evolve–remain consistent with our vision of a holistic education that equips us to pursue the common good. They serve as a touchpoint and decision-making framework for individuals and university / academic units, where our choices are weighed in the context of shared standards and mission. The cultivation of integrity is central to each of these aims, and to the development of graduates who will contribute to the common good.

First Principle: Honoring Human Dignity and Wellbeing

Honoring the dignity of all people in their full humanity means fostering individual and collective wellbeing. Doing so in the context of GAI requires respect for others, such that we take care to observe their reasonable expectation of privacy, to give them due credit for their creative and intellectual work, and to reject efforts to diminish, demean, or degrade their sense of self. Such a commitment also mitigates, in material and experiential ways, against existing disparities attributable to factors such as socioeconomic status, race, and ability, among others.

Second Principle: Embracing Transformative Learning

Embracing transformative learning and meaningful work means promoting and prompting the development of skills and perspectives that will meet community needs through innovative, creative, collaborative, and person-centered approaches. Such aims require that we identify and enact practices and environments in GAI use that are conducive to appropriate intellectual risk-taking, to revision, to resilience, and to the collaborative pursuit of critical thinking, imaginative problem solving, and productive dialogue. 

Third Principle: Advancing the Ethical Pursuit of Knowledge

Advancing the ethical pursuit of knowledge means participating in the quest to understand human experience and the natural world through our myriad, wide-ranging, and irreducibly complex ways of finding meaning. In this context, principled GAI use enhances the expansive, inclusive, and unsettling exploration of ideas, theories, experiences, and questions. At its best, such exploration will equip community members to engage in pluralistic dialogue and democratic deliberation from a stance of intellectual integrity and cultural openness. 

These principles of honoring human dignity, embracing transformational learning and meaningful work, and advancing the ethical pursuit of knowledge can ground our uses of GAI such that we realize its revolutionary potential for good without losing sight of our human and educational purpose.