Conversational AI can serve as a “thinking partner” to stretch our reasoning, deepen reflection, and foster the intellectual agility needed to navigate turbulent times
CIC’s Director Simon Buckingham Shum was honoured recently to contribute to The Hong Kong Polytechnic Educational Design Centre’s International Dialogues on Educational Transformation, with a seminar and discussion on his current work considering the role that conversational GenAI may play as we grapple with the global polycrisis.
From the event page:
“Speaker: Professor Simon Buckingham Shum is a leading voice in the intersection of learning, technology, and critical AI literacy. He is Professor of Learning Informatics at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Director of the Connected Intelligence Centre, where his work focuses on how analytics and conversational AI can be designed to augment human reasoning and reflection. A sought-after keynote speaker, Simon’s recent talks have explored the implications of generative AI for education and the urgent need to equip learners for an era of compounding global challenges.
Session Description: As overlapping global crises reshape our world, education faces a profound challenge – how do we prepare students to navigate complexity, uncertainty, and systemic collapse? In this webinar, Prof. Simon Buckingham Shum argues that conversational AI offers more than efficiency and that it can serve as a “thinking partner” to stretch our reasoning, deepen reflection, and foster the intellectual agility needed to navigate turbulent times.
Drawing on his recent work, Prof. Buckingham Shum will explore how dialogical AI tools might help educators and learners engage with the deep uncertainties of the polycrisis era. Join us and don’t miss this opportunity to rethink what it means to think with AI in challenging times.”