Friend or foe? How to make the most of AI
Roger is the Subject Adviser for Canva, and first joined u3a over 30 years ago. He helped set up Bourne End & District u3a, becoming its first Chair. Now, he runs regular online Canva courses as part of Interest Groups Online and for u3a regions across the country.
What is AI?
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is technology that can do things we usually associate with human intelligence. It can spot patterns, process information and carry out tasks that seem to involve understanding and reasoning.
AI does not work in the same way as the human brain. It learns from large amounts of data and uses patterns in that data to produce an answer or carry out a task. Although seemingly having human-like intelligence, today’s AI systems are not conscious and they do not have a sense of self.
There are several different types of AI:
- Large language model (LLM) - examples include ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. These systems are trained using very large amounts of text and other information. They learn patterns in language and use them to produce human-like answers to our questions. Some can search the internet or use other sources to provide up-to-date information.
- AI agent - we can give an AI agent a goal and allow it to take a series of steps to achieve that goal. Depending on how it has been designed, the agent may plan tasks, use computer tools, search for information and check its own progress. AI agents can be useful, but they also need careful controls. If they are badly designed or poorly supervised, they may take actions we did not intend. It is these systems that have been in the news recently - and not in a good way!
- AI systems designed for particular jobs - for example, they may create images from written descriptions, produce reports, recognise speech, analyse data or write computer programs. Some are built for one specific purpose. Others use a general AI model, such as a large language model, as their foundation.
AI and u3a
There is a great deal of interest in AI in the u3a movement. A number of local u3a’s have AI interest groups, and there are several national and online groups. The national groups include:
- AI for Everyone (National Subject Network) - this is the flagship national project team within u3a, composed of volunteer members and overseen by the National AI Subject Advisor. The network runs nationwide online learning events, curates extensive AI for Everyone Libraries filled with presentation materials, manages a monthly AI newsletter, and supports members who want to start their own local AI interest groups.
- AI for u3a AI Agitators - operating under u3a’s Interest Groups Online (IGO), this group meets over Zoom, and is specifically tailored for regular users and leaders who want to raise AI awareness, share teaching resources, and help launch classes.
How I use AI
I spend a lot of time on my computer - writing text such as this, creating designs for cards, posters, presentations etc - and I use AI to assist me with these tasks.
For example, I used AI to help write this article - generating some of the information, and checking the accuracy of the finished result. Not only does it improve what I do, it saves me a lot of time.
We’ve recently set up a new interest group at our u3a - “Science and the Natural World”. I needed a spreadsheet to keep a record of income and expenditure. I could have created this myself, but it was much quicker and easier to ask AI to do it.
I will be giving a short talk on AI at our first meeting, so I used AI to create this title slide to be shown on the screen.
AI can help create copyright-free visuals for presentations and other materials.
Is there a downside of AI?
Like all technology aids - washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, satnavs, etc - AI improves our quality of life, but it can make us lazy. And in the case of our brains, this can be a problem.
We no longer bother to map-read as our satnavs will direct us. I didn’t bother to create the spreadsheet as AI did it for me. And this means my brain is doing less, which may result in it becoming less agile.
I asked ChatGPT if this was the case, that using AI could harm my brain. This was its response - “My honest answer is: it could, if you let me do all the thinking for you. But if you use me as a partner to challenge your thinking, improve your writing and test your ideas, I believe you can use AI without sacrificing your mental agility - and may even strengthen some of your skills.”