Students@AI: What Does It Mean to Be a Student in the Age of AI?

We at AI Consensus, a Minerva student-led initiative, recently hosted Students@AI in London between March 15-16, 2024. The event brought together 200+ students, educators, and stakeholders in education, with the ultimate goal of exploring how we can best use AI to learn and how the experience of students fundamentally changes with this new technology. 

Over the past year, we’ve been highly optimistic about the role that AI can play in enhancing the learning of students and education as a whole. At Minerva and throughout the world, we’ve seen brilliant efforts by individuals and organizations, grappling with AI’s benefits and challenges, and working to responsibly integrate AI into the learning experience. 

However, it’s also been clear to us that many elements of this puzzle haven’t been properly explored, especially as AI itself continues to progress. Through this event, we sought to address two of these critical and connected gaps.

First, most conversations around AI are dominated by teachers and administrators. Yet, the perspective of students, who use AI the most and are the most affected by policies around AI, is rarely involved. This not only means that much useful insight is lost but also leads to policies that might be misguided. 

Second, and partially due to the lack of students in discussions, most current efforts we have found are focused on theoretical frameworks, such as AI policies for schools and classrooms, or discussing the long-term impacts of the technology. What is missing is a discussion about the actionable steps that students can take to make the most out of AI, and to prepare themselves for a future with AI.

Students@AI kicked off on March 15 with a Pitch Contest Night in Samsung KX, where teams battled it out, brainstorming use cases for AI for a prize. After three rounds of pitching, with other teams presenting challenges, the team that took the prize presented a platform that enhances learning by helping learners find follow-up questions and threads to explore. 

On the March 16, we started with a workshop by researchers at Google DeepMind, exploring using generative AI as a tutor. Participants shared about their current experiences with using AI, what their pain points are, and got to demo a Youtube-integrated tutor.

Next, we had the AI-Ready workshops, where participants got to engage with professionals from organizations like Wolfram, Trusted Doctor, Builder.AI, and Sage Publishing. Within small groups, students got to explore the applications of AI in specific sectors and talk with professionals within those fields.

Students@AI wouldn’t be the same without panels, exploring themes such as the future of work with AI, how AI is transforming the focus of learning, and whether AI is going to make great ideas harder to find. We featured a wide variety of panelists, including educators, such as our own Professor Geneva Stein, AI company leaders, like Angie Ma from Faculty.AI, entrepreneurs, like Chris Yeh who wrote Blitzscalling, school administrators, like Marcin Szala who founded Liceum Artes Liberales, and of course, students.

Ultimately, this event was focused on student involvement, ensuring that participants had the opportunities to speak up, interact... actually participate! If there is one thing that is clear after hosting this event, it is the importance of conversing with diverse stakeholders. Ensuring that students, educators, and administrators are all given chances to express their unique opinions and perspectives. We can only figure out so much ourselves, but collectively, the possibilities expand exponentially. 

If you are a student, we urge you to speak up, talk to your peers, talk to your teachers, talk to the moon. If you are not a student, engage with them, involve them, learn from them. We hope many interesting discussions will ensue. 

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About AI Consensus

Founded on the principles of collaboration, innovation, and responsibility, AI Consensus is a Minerva University student organization that aims to establish a global platform for discussions around AI in education, advocating for embracing its use in education and integrating it responsibly into educational settings. 

AI Consensus is sponsored by the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund, including organizations such as the Omidyar Network and the Archwell Foundation.