GenAI, effective assistants: tools or companions?

Abstract

The following text is the last one written by Éric Bruillard, who passed away before the journal’s reviewers returned their feedback. Viewing generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) primarily as assistants to humans, he analyzes two possible types of relationships: one with a tool that assists people in performing various tasks (much like a public writer or even a ghostwriter) and one with a companion, which can sometimes gain the upper hand over people who lack the necessary critical perspective.

He concludes that a key challenge for educators is to “repurpose” conversational AIs and push them to their limits, which requires them to receive appropriate training that enables them to keep up with new generations of AI and the evolving nature of interactions. He believes it could be useful to share stories about how conversational AIs are used in order to provide a diverse range of examples for discussion.