UA students explore the new ethical dilemmas of an AI world

If an entirely AI-generated character wins an acting award, who deserves the credit?

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Dr. Katherine Chiou, an associate professor at The University of Alabama, doesn't claim to have an answer. But she believes faculty must prepare students to face questions about AI ethics in their careers.

"Our students are going to walk into a world where the employment landscape is being remade," Chiou said.

Chiou is an anthropologist, not a computer scientist, but she has led efforts at UA to explore the use of generative AI as a teaching tool.

Collaborative Coursework

At an Alabama symposium on AI, Chiou met Dr. Lindsay Doukopoulos, associate director of educational development at Auburn University's Biggio Center. The two saw a need to help students think about how and when to use AI, and what the consequences might be.

This format aims to allow students to move beyond thinking about abstract principles and teaches them practical AI ethics through case studies - similar to those used in the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl.

"When an organization talks about transparency or doing no harm, what do these things mean in real life," Chiou said. "And how does that relate to AI?"

As they developed the course, its structure and the close collaboration between the historically rival schools pointed toward an almost inevitable culmination.

The AI Ethics Iron Bowl

After months of learning about ethics, students in the two classes received ten case studies. They had only a couple of weeks to research and formulate a position for each scenario. In the competition, teams must respond to each other's arguments as well as judges' questions. Judges score the teams on how well they apply an ethical framework, think critically about the issue and communicate those ideas.

Most participants were entirely new to the ethics bowl and to ethics discourse. For Chiou, the real victory was seeing students discover new ways to look at the world and to approach decision-making.

"This class really made me dive deep into a humanistic approach to ethical questions and critical thinking," said Jack Geiger, a senior criminal justice major. "It helped me develop an approach I want to stick with and led me to realize how to have better productive dialogue."

Each school had two teams, so an early round pitted students against their own classmates before they faced a rival team in the final two rounds.

Even though the UA team came up just short in the final two rounds, judges applauded both schools for their performances. But despite the loss, students still found the competition valuable.

"The most challenging part of the ethics bowl was the championship round," said Henry Gillam. "It was terrifying being up there in front of a full room of people and debating ethical dilemmas. But it was so fun and I would happily do it again."

Ethics Bowl Teaching and Research

The course Chiou and Doukopoulos developed stemmed in part from Chiou's work with the STRAKER Project, an NSF-funded project aimed at the responsible use of AI through ethics education. Their methodology uses case studies, or "ethics bowl pedagogy," to teach students critical thinking skills around professional ethics.

A grant from the UA Division for Research helped Chiou add a research component to the course to support observations from years in the classroom with data.

"There's a common complaint in many fields that there isn't a lot of ethics built into the curriculum," Chiou said. "It's already so hard to fit in material with the time we have."

Furthermore, some faculty may be hesitant to teach ethics concepts when it is not their area of expertise.

"We're piloting some of these materials we've developed to see how they work with students," she said. "It allowed me to assess whether we were achieving the student learning outcomes that we wanted to achieve."

Students will inevitably encounter tricky problems in their chosen careers.

"Ultimately, the lack of care in thinking about consequences can result in negative societal outcomes," she said. "Teaching students to deal with these situations is part of preparing our students to move through the world while practicing the things that we've taught them."