Using AI tools to improve learning experience (Huang Yueyong)

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This articleauthorHuang YueyongHe is an associate professor and senior consultant (entrepreneurship) at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and writes a column for the Hong Kong Economic Journal titled “Kemeijin“

Now, just “circle” a picture or enter a question, and Generative AI will immediately provide the answer. In this era, many people are confused about learning, and even doubt whether it is a waste of time. Recently, I often hear people sighing, “With AI, do we still need to learn?” In fact, from another perspective, the most important thing nowadays is how to use AI tools to make learning more efficient and high-quality.

I am used to reviewing the way I absorb information every once in a while. Last year, I also mentioned in my column how to use AI to take notes. Less than a year later, AI has developed at an astonishing speed, further changing the inertial relationship between “learning” and “time”, and can achieve greater learning results in a shorter time.

The most important thing nowadays is how to use AI tools to make learning more efficient and of higher quality. (Shutterstock image)

Large language models are powerful. If you need to write a report for homework, you can now use AI to “one-click input” to write it, but the content of this report is probably just a sample. Not to mention that the teacher can easily find that this is “AI homework”, and the students can’t learn anything from it. Even if we can use AI to “get the answer in one step”, whether it is books, songs, movies or anything else, AI cannot replace the experience of personal exploration.

For example, if you want to find a good restaurant, AI will help you filter reviews and select the highest-rated ones for recommendation. However, users still have to taste the food in person to confirm whether it is delicious, and other factors such as travel time or the surrounding environment of the restaurant may affect everyone’s feelings about the restaurant and food.

Rather than saying that AI eliminates the need for learning, it is better to say that AI shortens the learning time. Google now supports AI smartphones for “circle search”, which no longer requires text search, and can directly obtain all the information about an object by simply taking a photo; AI can also interchange text with images/videos/music, and then express it in different ways, generating content that is easier to understand and can interact with users.

Remember the “CODA” note-making method mentioned in the previous column – Collect, Organise, Distill and Action. This is especially important in the era of AI or ChatGPT, because we can capture and collect (C) more data from different media faster and more comprehensively, and compress the time of organization (O) and filtering (D), which can speed up action (A).

With the cooperation of different AI tools, learning is no longer limited to text textbooks, and the form is not limited to word of mouth. Compared with traditional classrooms, learning efficiency is much higher and the process is more interesting; the time saved is just right for us to explore and understand more different topics in depth, and portray a more colorful world.