The School of Social Work established the Working Group on Artificial Intelligence and Other Technologies to explore and research how social work intersects with emerging technologies, according to an April 4 news release.
The group — made up of social work faculty and staff — was established to encourage conversations about the role of artificial intelligence in teaching, while also focusing on the ethics of AI. The workgroup hopes to produce research and collaborations about the topic to foster future conversations concerning AI use in the classroom and social work.
“The Working Group on AI and Other Technologies, established by Dean Cole, brings together experts who tackle complex questions about technology’s role in social work,” said Jane Kovacs, director of public relations for the School of Social Work, in an email.
Kovacs said the School of Social Work has previously hosted several discussions with leaders in the field of artificial intelligence and education and hopes to foster further conversations with experts on how “AI can enhance our human-centered practice.”
“We look forward to sharing more from this workgroup with our students and the larger social work community,” Kovacs said.
Sarah Sloan, the assistant dean for health affairs and one of the members of the workgroup, said she is glad to see the School of Social Work exploring artificial intelligence.
“AI could be used as a tutor, it can be used as a creative aid, it can be used for feedback (and) as a catalyst to have more discussions,” Sloan said. “Students are telling me that they turned their reading into a podcast … (AI) taps into different learning styles.”
While the workgroup hopes to explore the ways AI can help social work practice and teaching, Sloan also said that the group will be very focused on the ethical impacts of AI, particularly relating to issues of bias and privacy.
“We want to respect confidentiality,” Sloan said. “We’re putting the information into these systems. We need to be careful about what information we put in about students and we need to be careful about what information we put in about clients.”
Sloan said she doesn’t want students to leave without knowing how to responsibly use AI, and that she hopes the workgroup helps prepare students for a world with AI.
“AI is here,” Sloan said. “Instead of ignoring it or passively accepting AI, we really wanted to explore it as a tool that could be used to help us solve some of society’s biggest problems.”
