logo
We're Losing the Plot on AI in Universities

We're Losing the Plot on AI in Universities

Minta day ago
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- An artificial intelligence furor that's consuming Singapore's academic community reveals how we've lost the plot over the role the hyped-up technology should play in higher education.
A student at Nanyang Technological University said in a Reddit post that she used a digital tool to alphabetize her citations for a term paper. When it was flagged for typos, she was then accused of breaking the rules over the use of generative AI for the assignment. It snowballed when two more students came forward with similar complaints, one alleging that she was penalized for using ChatGPT to help with initial research, even though she says she did not use the bot to draft the essay. You may be interested in
The school, which publicly states it embraces AI for learning, initially defended its zero-tolerance stance in this case in statements to local media. But internet users rallied around the original Reddit poster, and rejoiced at an update that she won an appeal to rid her transcript of the academic fraud label.
It may sound like a run-of-the-mill university dispute. But there's a reason the saga went so viral, garnering thousands of upvotes and heated opinions from online commentators. It laid bare the strange new world we've found ourselves in, as students and faculty are rushing to keep pace with how AI should or shouldn't be used in universities.
It's a global conundrum, but the debate has especially roiled Asia. Stereotypes of math nerds and tiger moms aside, a rigorous focus on tertiary studies is often credited for the region's economic rise. The importance of education — and long hours of studying — is instilled from the earliest age. So how does this change in the AI era? The reality is that nobody has the answer yet.
Despite the promises from edtech leaders that we're on the cusp of 'the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen,' the data on academic outcomes hasn't kept pace with the technology's adoption. There are no long-term studies on how AI tools impact learning and cognitive functions — and viral headlines that it could make us lazy and dumb only add to the anxiety. Meanwhile, the race to not be left behind in implementing the technology risks turning an entire generation of developing minds into guinea pigs.
For educators navigating this moment, the answer is not to turn a blind eye. Even if some teachers discourage the use of AI, it has become almost unavoidable for scholars doing research in the internet age. Most Google searches now lead with automated summaries. Scrolling through these should not count as academic dishonesty. An informal survey of 500 Singaporean students from secondary school through university conducted by a local news outlet this year found that 84% were using products like ChatGPT for homework on a weekly basis.
In China, many universities are turning to AI cheating detectors, even though the technology is imperfect. Some students are reporting on social media that they have to dumb down their writing to pass these tests or shell out cash for such detection tools themselves to ensure they beat them before submitting their papers.
It doesn't have to be this way. The chaotic moment of transition has put new onus on educators to adapt, and shift the focus on the learning process as much as the final results, Yeow Meng Chee, the provost and chief academic and innovation officer at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, tells me. This doesn't mean villainizing AI, but treating it as a tool, and ensuring a student understands how they arrived at their final conclusion even if they used technology. This process also helps ensure the AI outputs, which remain imperfect and prone to hallucinations (or typos), are checked and understood.
Ultimately, professors who make the biggest difference aren't those who improve exam scores but who build trust, teach empathy and instill confidence in students to solve complex problems. The most important parts of learning still can't be optimized by a machine.
The Singapore saga shows how everyone is on edge, and whether a reference-sorting website even counts as a generative AI tool isn't clear. It also exposed another irony: Saving time on a tedious task would likely be welcomed when the student enters the workforce — if the technology hasn't already taken her entry-level job. Demand for AI literacy in the labor market is becoming a must-have, and universities ignoring it does a disservice to cohorts entering the real world.
We're still a few years away from understanding the full impact of AI on teaching and how it can best be used in higher education. But let's not miss the forest for the trees as we figure it out.
More From Bloomberg Opinion:
This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Catherine Thorbecke is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia tech. Previously she was a tech reporter at CNN and ABC News.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Canva Brings Google's Veo 3 AI Video Support With Audio For Premium Users
Canva Brings Google's Veo 3 AI Video Support With Audio For Premium Users

News18

time39 minutes ago

  • News18

Canva Brings Google's Veo 3 AI Video Support With Audio For Premium Users

Last Updated: Canva is the latest tech platform to work with Google for the new Veo 3 video AI model that lets you generate high-quality content. Canva is the latest platform to team with Google for the Veo 3 AI model that lets you generate videos with audio using text prompts. The company has confirmed that using Veo 3 you can generate an 8-second video clip with audio in sync. Google unveiled the new video generation model at the I/O 2025 last month and it claims to offer high-quality visuals with ambient sound using basic prompts. Google has primarily kept Veo 3 AI as a paid service which is part of the AI Pro and Ultra plans available with Gemini access. Canva's new offering is part of its AI extension as it looks to entice more people to pay for its service even though most of the basic features are available with the free version as well. Veo 3 AI Videos In Canva: How To Get Started Talking about the Veo 3 integration, you would need the Canva premium version and the AI tool will be automatically added to your plan. Canva says Veo 3 will work on the web and the mobile apps. You can start using the premium feature by tapping on the Create with AI option. Give a detailed text prompt describing the kind of video you want the AI model to generate. You can make further additions like title, change the timeline of the visuals by clicking on Use canva editor bubble. The platform clearly sees the need to integrate with other third-party AI models to enrich its own services and get more people to buy the premium subscription. Google also has plans to make Veo 3 AI work through its own products like YouTube. The video streaming platform intends to bring Google's Veo 3 AI model to the feature which makes shooting a video and creating a script redundant in a big way. The integration of Veo 3 into YouTube Shorts is expected later this year and the update was shared by YouTube CEO Neal Mohan at an event recently. With Shorts pivoting to AI it could mean trouble for those who make a living because of the platform.

Canva Down: Users Not Able To Save Their Designs For Hours
Canva Down: Users Not Able To Save Their Designs For Hours

News18

time39 minutes ago

  • News18

Canva Down: Users Not Able To Save Their Designs For Hours

Last Updated: Canva outage is affecting people from starting their work day and in some regions people looking to end their work and shut down their systems. Canva, the creative platform has been unavailable for the last few hours on Tuesday morning. Many users are having issues with saving their designs and even view their work on the website. The company has shared its official status with a post on X and even started an incident report for the outage which started on early Tuesday for users. The current status suggests Canva has found a series of issues like: Users are unable to view or save changes to designs Users of CanvaAI making general knowledge queries or how to use Canva features may see failure messages Realtime comments may not be working, and will need to refresh the page to see new comments Application Notification may not be working, and users will need to refresh page to see new notifications Timer and follow user on designs may not be working At the time of writing, Canva was available once again and people are able to save and edit their designs on the platform. We're on it! We're working as quickly as we can to get things back up and running. Check for updates. Thank you! — Canva (@canva) July 8, 2025 The Downdetector platform did not show massive reports from users in India but it confirms that 64 percent of the complaints are related to Canva running on the web and only 9 percent facing issues with the app. The outage seems to have affected people in the US far more with more than 600 outage reports from users in the region. Fair to say that losing Canva this early in the morning will hamper productivity and most people in the US have to wait for their work day to end. somebody tell me if canva is down b4 i lose my whole entire mind ..— Shennelly Ann (@ShennellyAnn) July 8, 2025 Canva recently announced that it has garnered 200 million monthly active users and continues to grow rapidly from its previous user base of 115 million users in the last couple of years. The company has recently made acquisitions of AI startups to build its suite of features and tools to entice more people to buy its premium offerings Canva is the latest platform to team with Google for the Veo 3 AI model that lets you generate videos with audio using text prompts. The company has confirmed that using Veo 3 you can generate an 8-second video clip with audio in sync. Google unveiled the new video generation model at the I/O 2025 last month and it claims to offer high-quality visuals with ambient sound using basic prompts. First Published:

AI video becomes more convincing, rattling creative industry
AI video becomes more convincing, rattling creative industry

Time of India

time42 minutes ago

  • Time of India

AI video becomes more convincing, rattling creative industry

Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Gone are the days of six-fingered hands or distorted faces -- AI-generated video is becoming increasingly convincing, attracting Hollywood, artists, and advertisers, while shaking the foundations of the creative measure the progress of AI video, you need only look at Will Smith eating 2023, this unlikely sequence -- entirely fabricated -- has become a technological benchmark for the years ago, the actor appeared blurry, his eyes too far apart, his forehead exaggeratedly protruding, his movements jerky, and the spaghetti didn't even reach his version published a few weeks ago by a user of Google's Veo 3 platform showed no apparent flaws whatsoever."Every week, sometimes every day, a different one comes out that's even more stunning than the next," said Elizabeth Strickler, a professor at Georgia State Luma Labs' Dream Machine launched in June 2024, OpenAI 's Sora in December, Runway AI 's Gen-4 in March 2025, and Veo 3 in May, the sector has crossed several milestones in just a few has signed deals with Lionsgate studio and AMC Networks television vice president Michael Burns told New York Magazine about the possibility of using artificial intelligence to generate animated, family-friendly versions from films like the "John Wick" or "Hunger Games" franchises, rather than creating entirely new projects."Some use it for storyboarding or previsualization" -- steps that come before filming -- "others for visual effects or inserts," said Jamie Umpherson, Runway's creative gave the example of a script for which Lionsgate has to decide whether to shoot a scene or help make that decision, they can now create a 10-second clip "with 10,000 soldiers in a snowstorm."That kind of pre-visualization would have cost millions October, the first AI feature film was released -- "Where the Robots Grow" -- an animated film without anything resembling live action Alejandro Matamala Ortiz, Runway's co-founder, an AI-generated feature film is not the end goal, but a way of demonstrating to a production team that "this is possible."Still, some see an March, startup Staircase Studio made waves by announcing plans to produce seven to eight films per year using AI for less than $500,000 each, while ensuring it would rely on unionized professionals wherever possible."The market is there," said Andrew White, cofounder of small production house Indie "don't want to talk about how it's made," White pointed out. "That's inside baseball. People want to enjoy the movie because of the movie."But White himself refuses to adopt the technology, considering that using AI would compromise his creative Umpherson argues that AI allows creators to stick closer to their artistic vision than ever before, since it enables unlimited revisions, unlike the traditional system constrained by costs."I see resistance everywhere" to this movement, observed Georgia State's is particularly true among her students, who are concerned about AI's massive energy and water consumption as well as the use of original works to train models, not to mention the social refusing to accept the shift is "kind of like having a business without having the internet," she said. "You can try for a little while."In 2023, the American actors' union SAG-AFTRA secured concessions on the use of their image through sees AI diminishing Hollywood's role as the arbiter of creation and taste, instead allowing more artists and creators to reach a significant founders, who are as much trained artists as they are computer scientists, have gained an edge over their AI video rivals in film, television, and they're already looking further ahead, considering expansion into augmented reality and virtual reality -- for example creating a metaverse where films could be shot."The most exciting applications aren't necessarily the ones that we have in mind," said Umpherson. "The ultimate goal is to see what artists do with technology."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store