Will Pein is a third year marine biology student who keeps connected with his community. Gaelic football player, president of the Taekwondo club, member of the Debate Society, and on committee for the Entrepreneurs Society, Will knows all about maximising his potential. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a particular passion of Will’s and, if elected as Campaign Officer (Open) in the Union, he wants to help students properly integrate the technology into their learning.
Q: Why are you running for the position?
A: “I plan on being less busy next year, and I’m hoping to take on more of a role in the uni itself to help other clubs than just my own.”
Q: If elected, what is the first thing you would do in your new position?
A: “Transparency is the first thing. I want to make sure that both lecturers and students are fully aware of the AI policies in place. In speaking to friends and lecturers, I’ll simply ask, ‘do you know anything about the AI [guidelines]?’ And it’s ridiculous, the limited knowledge that both students and lecturers have.
“So, the first thing I want to do is make sure that everyone is aware of what tools are available and what the university allows, and also what could enhance the university experience.
“I want the policies to be communicated better. The policies are under revision currently, but when they get released, I don’t want you to go to this website, this link and see them. I want somebody to say, ‘Hey, here’s what’s changed’, and give that to everyone. Alongside that, I wish to host a, what I’m calling Tech and Talk, in the library every week to allow students to come with questions about it, and for me to be available to answer those questions to help them learn those tools as well.”
Q: As the first person to fill this position, what would you like to use it for?
A: “In the AI space, there has been a semi-official, semi-unofficial committee set up to look and see what’s changing. That’s very much policy-based; it’s not very student-focused. So, the thing that I would like to change is to make it so that it is student-focused, and look more at how we can prepare the student population to go out into the job market to find jobs.
“With entrepreneurs, I’ve been going to meet-ups in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and talking to employers, talking to recruits and people with startups, and every single one has said we need AI skills. It’s not just typical, ‘Can you use ChatGPT to type something?’. That’s not the extent of AI, and I want people to see that that is just the chat bot function of AI and AI goes so much deeper.
“Alongside that, I do want to work with artists and support creativity, because I do recognise that AI is good at image generation, however, I do want to keep human creativity. That’s a key part to emphasise as well. I dislike AI images and artwork. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Q: What are your long-and-short-term goals in the union?
A: “Short-term is simply to communicate policy; it’s to set up a Tech and Talk, and then long-term is to work on current policies to improve them, and to set out in the university, possibly even module training in how to use AI, and have that for future students after my tenure to be able to access.”
Q: What about the uni inspired you to run?
A: “AI, I’ve always had an interest in, ever since in college when ChatGPT – the public version – first released. With my IT teacher there we had the fun back-and-forth where we’d try and integrate ChatGPT’s responses into some of our presentations that we gave or in some of our work, and we’d look at how it responded and how it differs from human interaction and we’d make comments on it.
“And then as AI developed, that’s when I started to think ‘Oh, this is really cool’. If students could use it to plan research papers really easily, to access hard-to-find articles, that really would enhance their writing, and use it in how to summarise them, because the amount of time spent wasted in reading through whole article and getting to the end of it and you go, ‘Well, that [was a waste of time]’ is ridiculous, because if you have a quick summary, you can read through and go ‘Oh, that’s interesting; I think I’ll use that’, [it] saves so much time and will help you learn more.
“I want to promote AI to help learning, rather than [promote] to someone who thinks AI is to cheat, to make it write for you – no. I want to have it to augment, not replace.”
Will’s manifesto can be found here.
Featured image credit: Will Pein
