Pekantara UMN: Encouraging Students to Be More Critical in the Onslaught of AI

Lukas and Maria in the Fourth Day Pekantara seminar (Doc. UMN)

Tangerang (12/12/2024) – UMN’s Nusantara Week (Pekantara) continues for the fourth day. The fourth seminar conducted by Pekantara discussed Artificial Intelligence with Dr. Ir. Lukas MAI., CISA., IPM, a representative of the Indonesia Artificial Intelligence Society, with the theme “The Impact of AI on Critical Thinking & Education Integrity.”

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology of intelligence equivalent to humans. Humans already use AI daily, and this is because humans will continue to develop alongside technology. AI technology has helped society in many ways, from education to work and industry. Of course, with the development of technology as humans, we need to understand and also know the ethics of using AI, especially in education.

“AI will bring big changes and disruptions, especially since AI has replaced many jobs. It could be four years later that AI replaces your job, so what needs to be prepared? Therefore, AI must be exploited and explored so that we know the limits of AI. Otherwise, companies will certainly choose AI,” Dr. Andrey Andoko, M.Sc., Vice-Rector for Administration and Finance, said in the seminar’s opening.

Andrey gives a speech at the seminar. (Dok. UMN)

Andrey said that we don’t need to worry about AI because not everything can be replaced by AI. For Andrey, it is not AI that replaces humans; people without AI skills will be replaced, so Andrey hopes that UMN students will want to study AI in depth.

“Therefore, for the last two years, UMN has allowed students to use AI during learning. But of course, with the right ethics and values. AI is used as a tool, not to be imitated. With the existence of AI, we must think critically to know increasingly complex problem-solving,” Andrey continued.

Closing his speech, Andrey hopes that UMN students can develop creative and innovative thinking from new things that exist. Students should bring good changes and maintain relationships with humans instead of switching to technology. Andrey also added that students will be ready to enter the world of work with good AI and technology skills. 

This seminar was followed by a presentation by Lukas, who discussed Artificial Intelligence. Lukas is an AI expert, lecturer, and chairman of the Indonesia AI Society. He has been interested in technology since the beginning of college and always follows the development of existing technology.

“AI is exciting, and now it is with us. The miraculous thing is that AI greatly impacts us negatively and positively. AI used to be only for expert systems, but now there is general intelligence, which can later transform into super AI. AI will be smarter than humans, with more and more data,” Lukas said. 

Lukas explains material about AI. (Doc. UMN)

According to Lukas, many people still think AI is a robot, and Lukas denies this because AI is not the same as a robot. Lukas explained that AI can learn, and AI technology will continue to learn to understand us. Robots are automation technologies that replace competitive tasks or routine things.

“AI technology learns from the pattern and generates it; there is text prediction. AI gets data from what we usually look for. The biggest risk of using AI is data potioning. AI accepts everything we give it, not knowing whether it is good or bad. Cyber attacks are the biggest risk now and can be a risk in the future,” Lukas continued.

Lukas advised students to be more critical and use critical thinking. Technological advances make us realize that we should not believe things blindly but must discover more about what we see and receive in depth.

“AI, for me, is a double-edged sword; one side we can use to cut, but the other side can cut us too. Although AI has many benefits, it makes us dependent. This is because AI is now a generative engine that can do many things and provide much information,” Lukas continued.

According to Lukas, we will not be able to avoid the development of AI, but when using AI, we must know its limits and ethics. This should not be underestimated because ethical honesty is important. Lukas added that finding smart people is easy, but finding people who can be trusted is very difficult.

By Rachel Tiffany Tanukusuma | UMN News Service

English translation by Levina Chrestella Theodora

Kuliah di Jakarta untuk jurusan program studi Informatika | Sistem Informasi | Teknik Komputer | Teknik Elektro | Teknik Fisika | Akuntansi | Manajemen | Komunikasi Strategis | Jurnalistik | Desain Komunikasi Visual | Film dan Animasi | Arsitektur | D3 Perhotelan , di Universitas Multimedia Nusantara. www.umn.ac.id