Amid widespread concern among lecturers about students’ use of AI tools, public philosopher Bas Haring mostly sees opportunities: ‘Outsourcing part of the thinking process to AI shouldn’t be prohibited.’ Bas Haring annoyed a lot of people with a provocative recent experiment. For one of his students last year, the philosopher and professor of public understanding of science delegated his responsibilities as a thesis supervisor to AI. The student discussed her progress not with Haring, but with ChatGPT – and the results were surprisingly positive. While Haring may be excited about the outcome of his experiment, not everyone shares his enthusiasm. Some have called it unethical, irresponsible, unimaginative and even disgusting. It has also been suggested that this could provide populists with an excuse to further slash education budgets.
