The AI Issue
Letter from the Editors
From using artificial intelligence to write class papers, make grocery lists or gather advice on ending a ‘situationship,’ University of Wisconsin-Madison students have found unique ways to use AI in and outside the classroom.
But with these transformational changes, skeptics have argued AI circumvents learning and critical thinking and worry about the value of higher education if a chatbot can write an essay or complete a coding project almost as well as a college student.
Art professors have debated how they should approach AI in their syllabi and professors are not only studying the mechanics of AI, but pondering how we can reduce AI inputs to conserve the energy needed to power AI tools.
One thing is clear: AI is changing our daily lives as UW students. But it doesn’t just shape our lives on campus. Across Wisconsin, AI impacts Wisconsinites daily. From bills criminalizing deepfakes, to automated milking technology for dairy farmers to the data centers popping up across the state.
These changes are not without pitfalls, and not everyone is quick to adopt them.
K-12 schools are cautiously implementing AI policies to help teachers efficiently individualize lesson plans and maximize instructional time. UW professors are asking how and if AI belongs in the classroom and in the writing of scientific papers. And across Wisconsin, communities are weighing the economic benefits of new data centers against concerns over environmental impact and corporate influence.
This issue reports and critically examines the way AI shapes the lives of Wisconsinites and how those interactions play out on a daily basis. Cardinal reporters traveled to Port Washington city council meetings, sat through late-night Capitol hearings and, yes, even relied on ChatGPT prompts to guide their choices for a day. We listened to the students, lawmakers, professors, farmers and developers shaping what this new era looks like.
AI is not something on the horizon. It’s here. It’s in our classrooms, our conversations, our search bars, our politics and our futures. Where it goes from here will be up for us to decide.
The Daily Cardinal Management Team:
Noe Goldhaber, Editor-in-Chief
Nick Bumgardner, Managing Editor