Writing in The Baltimore Sun, Mikhail Pevzner, professor of accounting in The University of Baltimore's Merrick School of Business, says that it's important for higher education to distinguish between AI's capacity for increasing efficiency and productivity, and the potential impact it may have on the development of criticial thinking skills.
The goal of higher education, Dr. Pevzner says, should not be to discourage AI usage, but rather to "make students' use of AI transparent, purposeful and subject to verification."
"Maryland has launched a statewide artificial intelligence initiative through the University System of Maryland at a moment when higher education faces a deeper question than whether students will use AI," he writes. "The more important question is what a college degree means when powerful tools can draft text, write code, summarize research and organize complex information. If universities respond only by trying to police AI use, they will miss the larger opportunity. Used responsibly, AI can help Maryland's colleges and universities strengthen, not weaken, the value of higher education."
Pevzner cites a recent experience he had in deploying an AI tool to support an accounting research project.
"I understood the accounting problem, but not all the programming behind the solution," he writes. "A colleague with data science expertise verified the technical work, while I verified the accounting output. Neither of us could have completed the project efficiently alone. AI reduced the cost of collaboration by allowing each of us to contribute our own expertise without first becoming an expert in the other person's field. But the project also showed why expertise is still essential. We could not responsibly trust the AI without checking its work."
Learning outcomes, he notes, are verifiable—and Maryland colleges and universities know how to do that. In that environment, Dr. Pevzner says, higher education can support graduates with "strong foundations, technological fluency, sound judgment and a sense of responsibility."
Read Dr. Pevzner's op-ed in The Baltimore Sun.
Learn more about Prof. Mikhail Pevzner and UBalt's Artificial Intelligence for Business program, available in the Merrick School of Business.