By AIDAN KNIGHT
IT’S hard to discuss any topic in 2026 without the phrase ‘artificial intelligence’ being brought up.
Regardless of position on the matter, most have accepted it’s here to stay.
Since its mainstream integration into everyday life in 2022, following the launch of the publicly available Chat-GPT multimodal model, the AI landscape has changed dramatically.
The area perhaps affected most of all by its mass-popularisation is education.
Many schools worked quickly post-pandemic to develop anti-use policies to prevent students from using AI to cheat, but in the nature of the technology, it found ways to outsmart detection over time. Tests were redesigned psychologically to produce clearly fraudulent answers if Chatbots were used, only for said technology to learn from and work around these preventatives by the time exams took place.
By 2023, Australian Universities were investing in their own AI models, designed to detect AI-generated content within student submissions. The most used of these models is TurnItIn, which became commonplace in April of 2023, thanks to it’s 98 per cent accuracy in determining generated content, and before the month was out was purchased by 780 schools across the nation. This created a new market for those in the IT sector, who could generate more revenue by designing flaws in their AI programs, which they could exploit with corresponding detection software they sold to schools and universities, as a form of technological war profiteering.
Now, leading Victorian schools such as Deakin University have designed their own AI models for students to use. Released earlier this month, Deakin’s generative AI tool ‘GEM’, is managed by Amazon’s Australian Web Service.
The same university faced backlash from students this month, as the tables turned and lectures that students were paying tuition for were delivered by AI instead of a qualified teacher. The median cost for a single unit at Deakin is $2000.
The Express spoke to Federation University Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor, Learning and Teaching, Professor Nina Fotinato, on the local education provider’s perspective.
“It is important to regulate the use of artificial intelligence across university processes, practice, and people functions to ensure we remain innovative, efficient and future-focused,” she said.
Professor Fotinatos said universities also had a responsibility to prepare students for a workforce already incorporating AI across multiple sectors, and that institutions must strike a balance between innovation and responsibility.
“As higher education institutions, we play a critical role in preparing our students for workplaces, many of which are already using AI tools,” she said.
“By incorporating the appropriate use of AI into our teaching, universities can help students build digital literacy, while ensuring they understand the benefits, limitations and risks.”
She said AI should be viewed as a legitimate educational tool, but one that requires careful guidance.
“These tools can provide support in circumstances that would otherwise not be available,” Professor Fotinatos said.
“However, they have varying levels of reliability and need to be interpreted with caution – understanding those limitations is part of the skillset students need to develop.”
While students will inevitably explore AI outside formal learning environments, she said universities play a key role in shaping how that interaction occurs.
“It’s important we highlight both the benefits and the challenges as part of the learning and decision-making process,” she said.
Federation University Arts Academy director Professor Rick Chew said concerns about AI undermining creativity may be overstated.
“Not necessarily,” he said.
“While AI tools can assist in focusing existing concepts and structure, the capacity for original thought and creativity is still extremely limited.”
Professor Chew said human input remained central to any meaningful creative outcome.
“The clarity and depth of prompts provided by humans still very much determine the outcome,” he said.
He pointed to historical parallels, noting that creative practice has always evolved alongside new technologies.
With institutions, educators and students all adapting in real time, AI’s role in education is unlikely to be settled any time soon – instead continuing to evolve alongside the technology itself.
