In the News

Drive innovation - Integrate AI for next generation

by Rep. French Hill
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 
July 25, 2024

For the better part of the last decade, and thanks to the leadership of former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas has received national attention for our commitment to teaching computer science in our schools. Our business community and code.org were tremendous partners in building this groundwork across our state.

This terrific foundation creates a natural path to promote literacy in artificial intelligence (AI) and implement best practices in its ethical and effective use for the continued enhancement of our teachers, administrators, and--most importantly--our students. This should be a major focus following the pandemic because we know that our students are struggling, with only 32.2 percent at or above third-grade reading levels, down from 35 percent in 2022. We should allow teachers to increase basic literacy skills through the safe use and implementation of AI empowerment tools.

Last August, I attended a weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of Little Rock where local high school principals offered their initial reactions to the impact of OpenAI's ChatGPT following its extraordinary debut in the fall of 2022. They voiced excitement and concern with equal animation.

These principals recognized the immense benefits of asking ChatGPT to save time with an initial lesson-plan idea for eighth-grade American history. At the same time, they shared their concern about the inability of a teacher to determine just how dominant ChatGPT's output content was in a particular assignment. As of April 2024, 11 U.S. states have published AI guidelines. "TeachAI" is a consortium led by code.org which argues that "AI guidelines can empower schools to harness AI's potential benefits while ensuring student privacy and responsible usage."

In higher education, Arkansas' universities and colleges are active in encouraging Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors and enhanced opportunities for students. The University of Central Arkansas (UCA) has established a Cyber Range system, which offers students advanced access to cyber careers and cyber protection. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) has developed an outstanding undergraduate and graduate engineering program centered around data analytics.

These are just some examples of outstanding efforts by our universities in central Arkansas that can be enhanced by fully integrating the use of AI. Similarly, our statewide effort to enhance the skilled trades through workforce education at both the high school and higher education levels is also enabling AI to be included as a routine part of their curriculums.

As AI will remain at the center of all that we do in the years ahead, it is essential that our educational institutions prepare our workforce and offer each of us a lifelong learning opportunity to enhance our own abilities to maximize the benefits of AI in our personal and professional lives. Under Gov. Sarah Sanders' leadership, our state is continuing the conversation through a new AI working group focused on the safe and responsible use of AI by our state government.

In Congress, I am pleased that Speaker Mike Johnson appointed me to the AI Task Force in the House of Representatives, and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry appointed me as co-chair of the committee's AI Working Group.

These working groups show a commitment to education by providing government officials at all levels with substantive learning forums on AI, enabling us to better understand use cases, where the technology is headed, what issues may arise, and how equipped state governments and the federal government are at safeguarding consumer protections and enforcing existing laws. This is a step in the right direction and will help ensure that elected officials will make thoughtful decisions moving forward.

Arkansas and Arkansas' educational institutions are particularly well-positioned to maximize these opportunities for our citizens. We must seize every opportunity to achieve this goal while inspiring our students to drive innovation for the betterment of our great state and country.