The CSU system released a statement in February announcing the full embrace of AI tools across all 23 campuses through a new initiative. The press release revealed that all students, faculty and staff will have access to AI tools. The initiative aims to create an AI-empowered education system that surpasses the current landscape.
“We are proud to announce this innovative, highly collaborative public-private initiative that will position the CSU as a global leader among higher education systems in the impactful, responsible and equitable adoption of artificial intelligence,” said CSU Chancellor Mildred García in the official statement. “The comprehensive strategy will elevate our students’ educational experience across all fields of study, empower our faculty’s teaching and research and help provide the highly educated workforce that will drive California’s future AI-driven economy.”
The goal for the CSU system is a public-private initiative in collaboration with large tech giants such as Adobe, Alphabet (Google), Intel, Microsoft, LinkedIn, NVIDIA and OpenAI, along with the Office of California Governor Gavin Newsom. The partnership forms the AI Workforce Accele?ration Board?, a collaboration with almost a dozen tech giants in the industry with expectations to add more in the coming months.
CSUN Provost Dr. Meera Komarraju, Interim Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Ranjit Philip, shared their thoughts on the purpose of CSU’s new initiative amid AI advancements.
“This rapid evolution [of AI] makes it critically important to equip students with essential skills for the future workforce, support faculty in becoming familiar with AI and exploring its role in teaching and learning, and assist employees in leveraging AI to make business processes more effective and efficient,” Komarraju and Philip wrote in an email.
However, CSU’s labor union, the California Faculty Association (CFA), views this new initiative in a more critical light. A response published on their website stated, “In a time of severe budget cuts, program closures, restructuring, layoffs and mismanagement, the CSU’s administrators continue to confuse and disappoint. Administrators continue to invest university resources to launch initiatives with little to no input from faculty, students and staff. The announcement – and its lack of detail – is so disturbing.”
CFA Bargaining Team Chair Kevin Wehr explained his understanding of the controversy surrounding the initiative and the support and skepticism among groups who will be impacted.
“There's some faculty who are really excited about AI. They may have already started to incorporate it into their work in a classroom…And then there's a group sort of on the other side, if you will, who are very vocally against the use of AI. They're maybe suspicious,” said Wehr. “They certainly know the realities of AI and how problematic it is in terms of race, bias, sex bias, lots of homophobia and transphobia that comes out. So they're not going to use it. And then there's a lot of people in the middle. There's a lot of folks who are curious, maybe slightly skeptical, and picking a ‘we’ll wait-and-see’ approach.”
He shared his worries about implementing AI in the CSU system, specifically about user information and how the tools are used.
“My personal concerns really center around the use of data, the privacy and security of data, and the guardrails around problematic algorithms… I really worry about putting these tools, these extraordinarily powerful tools, in the hands of our students without any guardrails, without any sort of discussion about ethics,” Wehr said.
AI tools and training will be available for all 460,000 students and 63,000 faculty and staff in the system. However, the union questions whether or not this initiative will benefit campuses in the long run and how future implementation will affect education.
A large part of this new initiative is the release of the AI Commons Hub, a dedicated CSU platform. The hub offers free training programs and certifications to maximize inclusivity regarding AI tools. The CSU system is also collaborating with OpenAI to release ChatGPT Edu for students, faculty and staff beginning March 26. ChatGPT EDU is a version of the platform focused on creating personalized educational experiences.
According to the press release, the AI Workforce Acceleration Board was formed to better educate students about artificial intelligence and help them develop skills with AI tools as they become more common in California’s workforce and economy.
