MINERVA VOICES

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

by Class of 2025 students Leo Wu, Jan Bartkowiak, and Maia Lortkipanidze

March 25, 2024

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.

Leo Wu, President of AI Consensus, giving the opening remarks

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.

A group photo with all the participants from Students@AI Day 1 at Samsung KX

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.

The DeepMind Workshop

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.

The AI in Education panel, featuring Adrian Smith from Wolfram, Adam Webster from Sphinx.AI, Marcin Szala, Founder of Liceum Artes Liberales, Minerva Professor Geneva Stein, and Henry Vanderspuy a master's student at LIS. The panel was moderated by Mashiko Lortkipanidze, a Minerva student and AI Consensus Co-Founder.

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. 

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.

Quick Facts

Name
Country
Class
Major

Social Sciences & Business

Business

Natural Sciences

Social Sciences

Cognitive Science and Economics & Political Science

Social Sciences & Business

Business & Computational Sciences

Business and Social Sciences

Social Sciences and Business

Computational Sciences & Social Sciences

Computer Science & Arts and Humanities

Business and Computational Sciences

Business and Social Sciences

Natural Sciences

Arts and Humanities

Business, Social Sciences

Business & Arts and Humanities

Computational Sciences

Natural Sciences, Computer Science

Computational Sciences

Arts & Humanities

Computational Sciences, Social Sciences

Computational Sciences

Computational Sciences

Natural Sciences, Social Sciences

Social Sciences, Natural Sciences

Data Science, Statistics

Computational Sciences

Business

Computational Sciences, Data Science

Social Sciences

Natural Sciences

Business, Natural Sciences

Business, Social Sciences

Computational Sciences

Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Computational Sciences, Natural Sciences

Natural Sciences

Computational Sciences, Social Sciences

Business, Social Sciences

Computational Sciences

Natural Sciences, Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences

Arts & Humanities, Social Science

Social Sciences, Business

Arts & Humanities

Computational Sciences, Social Science

Natural Sciences, Computer Science

Computational Science, Statistic Natural Sciences

Business & Social Sciences

Computational Science, Social Sciences

Social Sciences and Business

Business

Arts and Humanities

Computational Sciences

Social Sciences

Social Sciences and Computational Sciences

Social Sciences & Computational Sciences

Social Sciences & Arts and Humanities

Computational Science

Minor

Sustainability

Computational Sciences

Computational Sciences

Computational Science & Business

Economics

Social Sciences

Concentration

Economics and Society & Strategic Finance

Enterprise Management

Economics and Society

Cells and Organisms & Brain, Cognition, and Behavior

Applied Problem Solving & Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence & Cognition, Brain, and Behavior

Designing Societies & New Ventures

Strategic Finance & Data Science and Statistics

Brand Management and Designing Societies

Data Science & Economics

Machine Learning

Cells, Organisms, Data Science, Statistics

Arts & Literature and Historical Forces

Artificial Intelligence & Computer Science

Cells and Organisms, Mind and Emotion

Economics, Physics

Managing Operational Complexity and Strategic Finance

Global Development Studies and Brain, Cognition, and Behavior

Scalable Growth, Designing Societies

Business

Drug Discovery Research, Designing and Implementing Policies

Historical Forces, Cognition, Brain, and Behavior

Artificial Intelligence, Psychology

Designing Solutions, Data Science and Statistics

Data Science and Statistic, Theoretical Foundations of Natural Science

Strategic Finance, Politics, Government, and Society

Data Analysis, Cognition

Brand Management

Data Science and Statistics & Economics

Cognitive Science & Economics

Data Science and Statistics and Contemporary Knowledge Discovery

Internship
Higia Technologies
Project Development and Marketing Analyst Intern at VIVITA, a Mistletoe company
Business Development Intern, DoSomething.org
Business Analyst, Clean Energy Associates (CEA)

Conversation

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.

Leo Wu, President of AI Consensus, giving the opening remarks

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.

A group photo with all the participants from Students@AI Day 1 at Samsung KX

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.

The DeepMind Workshop

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.

The AI in Education panel, featuring Adrian Smith from Wolfram, Adam Webster from Sphinx.AI, Marcin Szala, Founder of Liceum Artes Liberales, Minerva Professor Geneva Stein, and Henry Vanderspuy a master's student at LIS. The panel was moderated by Mashiko Lortkipanidze, a Minerva student and AI Consensus Co-Founder.

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. 

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.