Artificial Intelligence in a Real World

Ohio Wesleyan alumni and faculty share their thoughts, hopes, and fears on how AI may transform our way of life.

Since ChatGPT burst into the world at the end of 2022, artificial intelligence, AI, has spurred visions of opportunity and fears of catastrophe.

AI is already transforming industries and upending how we see the world. It even helped create a new Beatles record! And AI is certainly rocking the education world, from students using AI to write papers to teachers trying to detect such efforts while also using AI tools to enhance classroom learning.

OWU faculty are rapidly exploring how to best use AI on campus, and alumni in practically every field are trying to envision how this breakthrough technology will transform their jobs while that transformation is already underway.

OWU Magazine asked a dozen alumni and OWU faculty to share their thoughts on AI in their field—now and over the next few years.

In a way, we also asked one of OWU's most famed graduates—Norman Vincent Peale, Class of 1920 and best-selling author of The Power of Positive Thinking—to write an essay on AI. It no longer matters that Peale died more than 30 years ago. ChatGPT created the essay in a matter of seconds in response to the request, "Writing as if you were author Norman Vincent Peale, write a 600-word essay on the impact that artificial intelligence will have on society in the United States over the next decade. This essay is for publication in OWU Magazine, a magazine for alumni of Ohio Wesleyan University."

After you read the essays that follow, please send your thoughts, hopes, and fears about AI to OWU Magazine to share online and in the next issue.

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The Next Big Wave

• The Double-Edged Sword of Technological Progress by Glenn Entis '76 (Senior Director at Google Research, San Francisco, CA)
• AI and the Value of Interdisciplinary Thinking by Chelsea Vadnie (OWU Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
• AI Is the Next Big Technological Wave by Evan Reas '07 (Founder at AshramX, Tampa, FL)

Creativity & Creation

• Creativity, Creation, and the Animation Industry by Olivia Baylor '19 (Production Assistant at DreamWorks Television Animation, Los Angeles, CA)
• Technological Opportunity and Ethical Anxiety by Nick Dietrich (OWU Assistant Professor of Data Analytics)
• AI in Finance and Accounting by Chaz Narwicz '10 (Principal, Invoice to Cash, Denver, CO)

New World in Healthcare

• AI Bringing on a New World in Healthcare by Rebecca Palmer '00 (Senior Consultant, AI, Baxter International, Columbus, OH)
• Expanding Biomedical Research and Avoiding Hallucinations by Chris Heckman '12 (Reference Librarian, Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD)

Is AI for the Birds?

• Is AI for the Birds? by Dustin Reichard (OWU Associate Professor of Biological Sciences)
• AI, the Environment, and Sustainability by Ken Bagstad '99 (Research Economist, U.S. Geological Survey, Geosciences & Environmental Change Science Center, Denver, CO)

Transforming Work

• AI Transforming the Work of Lawyers by Lars Mahler '00 (Chief Science Officer at LegalSifter, Columbus, OH)
• Use AI for a Richer K-12 Education by Sarah Kaka (OWU Associate Professor of Education)

Embracing the Promise

• The Transformative Journey: Embracing the Promise of Artificial Intelligence by ChatGPT in the voice of Norman Vincent Peale 1920 (1898-1993, pastor and best-selling author of The Power of Positive Thinking)