10 Questions With… Inara Scott, Gomo Family Professor and senior associate dean in the College of Business. Scott is internationally known for her work on generative AI pedagogy and higher education. OSU is hosting AI Week April 28-May 2.
What originally brought you to Oregon State?
I practiced energy law and worked for energy businesses for about 10 years before I came to Oregon State. I felt it was really important to practice before I taught, but I had always wanted to teach as well. I love writing and I love research, and when I saw an opportunity to teach and research in the field of energy and environmental law in the business school, I couldn’t have been more excited. It felt like the perfect fit.
How did you get interested in AI and its impact on teaching practices and inclusivity?
When ChatGPT was first released, I was serving as associate dean for teaching and learning for the College of Business, and it was immediately clear to me that this technology would have a huge impact on teaching and learning. For me, it looked like the technology would be a catalyst for a change that we already been making: moving toward a more active and engaging pedagogy that was focused on critical thinking and analysis, not on memorization and recitation of content. I also saw, and still believe, in the potential of the technology to provide individualized learning experiences at scale. Higher income individuals have always been able to access individual tutors and support systems; large language models have the potential to give everyone access to the same learning supports.
How can AI be developed in higher education to be a tool, rather than a replacement, to those working in the sector?
We have to be thoughtful about how we deploy AI so that we teach students how to use it as a thinking partner and support but not as a replacement for critical thinking. New research shows that if we aren’t careful, people will offload thinking to AI. My focus now is on building systems and structures for learning that help us avoid that future. That might look like credibility assessment, which means triangulating and testing across different platforms and creating spaces where AI isn’t present so we can bring our independent thinking to places where it is embedded.
What makes you passionate about higher education?
Higher education truly changes lives. It creates opportunities for social mobility, catalyzes critical thinking and creates opportunities for mobilizing enormous talent to solve the world’s most pressing problems. I believe deeply in OSU’s mission of prosperity widely shared and I think higher education is uniquely positioned to extend prosperity across the globe.
How do we ensure that questions about ethics and fairness are not pushed aside when developing AI related to teaching and student affairs?
This needs to be an ongoing question we ask whenever we employ AI tools. For example, when we bring an AI tool into the classroom, we need to ask how the different tiers of use (i.e., free versions versus paid versions) might impact student outcomes; we need to ask what biases are embedded in the tools and how those biases might be scaled up by AI. And we need to query what the costs of the tools are—the labor made to create them, and the power that fuels them.
What advice would you give the younger version of yourself who was just starting college?
Oh, please give yourself time to explore everything! Life is long. Give yourself the space to try lots of things and don’t worry about finding “the thing.”
What types of things should developers be considering when they’re creating things like AI bots to interact with students that go beyond just the technology?
We have to be very careful in our testing and structuring to consider where bots might reproduce biases or embed shallow thinking into our learning spaces. AI can be used for great benefits to students, but there’s real danger if we aren’t thoughtful about how it impacts critical thinking.
What was your favorite course in college?
I took a year of Hindi that was incredible—I was terrible at speaking it but I loved learning the script and seeing all the ways a different language illustrates differences in culture and society. I also studied with Nawal El Saadawi, an Egyptian feminist, physician and activist. I learned so much from these glimpses of different cultures and ways of seeing the world.
Do you feel hopeful or concerned about the direction of AI in the current world and why?
Both, of course! There’s a lot of reason to be optimistic—the potential to create individualized learning opportunities at scale being the most important to me. But there’s a looming danger too, in the way that AI, if used carelessly or thoughtlessly, can exacerbate inequality. That’s why I think it’s absolutely essential that all of us in higher education are engaging with the technology. We have a real duty to society to use our learning spaces in thoughtful ways to direct AI and create guardrails that keep us heading in the direction we want to go.
What is your favorite non-academic pursuit or passion?
I write fiction and am currently working on a new fantasy series that I can’t wait to get back to this summer.
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