Experts deliberate on AI and liberals arts at principals’ meet

Kolkata: The Times NIE Principals' Seminar, held recently at a city hotel, offered unique insights into holistic education. Organised in association with Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, the seminar held on July 3 provided a platform for a healthy dialogue among 95 educators from 87 schools on the challenges in the education field. The topic, "Education Rewired: Integrating Engineering, liberal arts and AI for Future" was an opportunity for stalwarts to get together and debate and discuss the way forward in school education.

While the principals were awaiting the panel discussion, some students had dropped in to interact with Prof Padmakumar Nair, vice-chancellor of Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology. The students satiated their queries on AI and Prof Nair patiently addressed all of them.

Sidhu, the frontman of the Bengali rock band Cactus, was the chief guest at the event while Malabika Sen, actor, singer and dancer, was the guest of honour.

The panellists for the evening included Prof Anirban Mukherjee, principal in-charge of RCC Institute of Information Technology, National award-winning filmmaker Ashoke Viswanathan, Abhijan Bhattacharyya, senior scientist at Network Solutions & Services unit of TCS, and Prof Nair, vice-chancellor of Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology. They discussed and debated on ways to build an AI ecosystem required for the progress of the society with the introduction of experiential learning.

Prof Mukherjee discussed how AI should be introduced at the school level, where critical thinking should be induced to create an awareness and appreciation of AI.

Viswanathan compared the use of ChatGPT to that of an open-book exam. To prevent students from using LLMs (large language models) for getting quick answers to every query, teachers need to prepare questions that induce critical thinking. He narrated how stalwarts in the field of science like PC Mahalanobis could sing Rabindra Sangeet and have a deep understanding of the subject, while referring to a holistic education, which is the need of the hour.

Prof Nair stressed on the safety measures that can be adopted while using AI. He mentioned how overusing AI can take away the challenges in a job and how ethical and privacy issues can arise while overusing AI.

Bhattacharyya, who has been riding the wave of technology for the last 22 years, mentions how once AI had goofed up a presentation. He explained that teachers can use AI to trigger the thought process of students, though nothing beats human touch.

Sohini Sen, assistant professor in English at RCC Institute of Information Technology, ably moderated the panel discussion.

A selfie-zone added zing to the entire event, prompting the attendees to get clicked and receive fully developed photographs instantly.