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While implementing with caution, Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds potential to help nations address pressing social issues, such as homelessness, climate change, and healthcare accessibility. With the existing and potential economic and social benefits of AI, it is crucial to integrate AI learning in undergraduate education. This paper presents the preliminary findings of a course project that engages students to learn AI by prototyping solutions to address important social issues in their communities among 120 undergraduate MIS students. Students worked in groups and developed chatbots that addressed a variety of community issues during COVID-19. A survey study shows students’ enhanced understanding and mastery of AI concepts and applications, empowerment of contributing to their communities through AI innovation, and an emerging awareness of diversity, equity, and ethical issues in the community and AI technologies. We conclude with implications of learning AI, innovation, and ethics through the lens of AI for social good.
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Pro or Con? Introducing AI Ethics Debates in an Undergraduate MIS Course
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming pervasive across industries, making it important for management information systems (MIS) students to understand the ethical issues involved. We present an active learning approach to teaching the fast-changing topic of AI ethics using a debate format. This approach was piloted in an undergraduate MIS course of 30 students. Over a five-week period, student teams were assigned to argue either the opportunities (pro) or dangers (con) viewpoint for five different AI technologies. A post-project survey indicated this format helps students gain a better understanding of the applications, opportunities, and potential misuse of AI. Students found this to be an engaging and fun way to explore the multiple dimensions of AI ethics that also required them to employ critical thinking, collaboration, research, and communication skills. We share our findings about the benefits of co-creating knowledge in the classroom using a debate format to explore an evolving topic.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2142783
- PAR ID:
- 10510887
- Publisher / Repository:
- The American Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) 2023
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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