Embrace AI, but not always

A message to my students at the start of the new academic year: Embrace AI, but not always, and save room for happy accidents: Everyone seems to be embracing AI today, especially in education. And perhaps that is only logical. AI is here to stay, it is not going to disappear, and you, as students, will undoubtedly have to learn how to work with it in your future professional lives. So, I am certainly not against AI in education.

But I do embrace AI with some reservation.

After all, education is not only about delivering a good final product. It is also about the learning process that comes before it. I therefore think we should be careful not to turn to AI too quickly.

Sometimes, you simply have to do something yourself!

I like to compare this with one of my hobbies. I am not particularly good at it, but I would still like to get better at it to some extent: painting.
Yes, I paint occasionally, just for fun. When I start a new painting, I have to think. And keep thinking, because it has to be something I can actually handle. I do use a reference painting, but I don't take a photo and use AI. I take my brush, mix my paint and start painting.
The result is not always what I had hoped for. Sometimes I make mistakes. I make a lot of them, and that obviously annoys me. Often, I have to try something again. And again. And again. And so I learn. I will never become a real artist, but the next painting may be a little better because I have taken something from the previous one.

Wasn't it Bob Ross who said that mistakes are not troublesome by-products of the learning process? They are the learning process. Happy accidents.

And actually, I recently experienced this in my own teaching. I have just finished a course module at Vlerick Business School. During the case study sessions, I asked the students not to use AI. And it worked!The students were willing to think for themselves, discuss, make mistakes, try out ideas, get stuck, and start all over again without the help of AI.

That is why I don't think we should always embrace AI. We need to let students make mistakes again, let them work without AI, and let them learn from their mistakes. Yes, even from their stupid mistakes.
So let's make some mistakes again. Let's come up with some strange solutions. Let things sometimes be completely wrong. And then let's start again from scratch.

Above all, let's not let AI automatically think for us, or for our students.

Long live thinking for yourself, trying, failing and starting all over again.

Let's not embrace AI all the time.