AI: Harnessing the Machine | Vanderbilt University [Video]

When some schools are banning ChatGPT, Vanderbilt is embracing generative AI technology to unlock opportunities for research and learning.

By Michael Blanding

In her class on the politics of the French Revolution, Holly Tucker starts off by assigning a historical character to each student—Marquis de Lafayette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Louis XVI—and giving them a multi-page role sheet detailing their alter ego’s political affiliation, life philosophy and strategic goals. Monarchist or revolutionary firebrand, this will be the student’s persona for the next six weeks, as Tucker has the class role-play scenarios, seek out alliances and vanquish their enemies in a simulation of the crucial historical event.

She next encourages them to do something many teachers wouldn’t dream of—talk to ChatGPT. “One of their first assignments is to upload their role sheet and then ask questions about it,” says Tucker, Mellon Foundation Chair in the Humanities and professor of French, of the interaction with the generative …