Artificial intelligence is transforming academia, and the University of Turin has chosen a structured and conscious approach to this constantly growing technology. Instead of banning its use, the university promotes the responsible use of IV, while recognizing its opportunities and risks. To ensure greater security and reliability in the use of generative tools, the university has signed an agreement with OpenAI and Microsoft, through which 600 ChatGPT and Copilot licenses have been distributed. The high demand, which has led to the rapid exhaustion of licenses, testifies to the concrete interest of the academic community in these technologies.
This initiative, which aims to protect the confidentiality of data by preventing it from being used to train public models, is part of a broader strategy of the university to integrate AI into educational processes, scientific research and administrative management.
AI at the service of teaching
One of the areas in which artificial intelligence has begun to have a significant impact is teaching. The Turin university has already activated specific laboratories and training courses, such as the one within the degree course in Communication Sciences, where students learn to interact with AI systems in a critical and reflective way. As highlighted by Gabriella Taddeo, president of the course, the goal is not only technical, but cultural: knowing how to ask the right questions becomes a key skill.
At the same time, work is underway on the revision of the guidelines for the preparation of degree theses, with the aim of taking into account the growing role that AI plays in academic production. In this way, the University of Turin aims to train students who not only know how to use these tools, but also understand their implications and ethics.
Benefits for students, faculty, and staff
The Turin university’s approach to AI is systemic and involves all components of university life:
- For students, tools such as ChatGPT can serve as a support in writing academic texts, bibliographic research and creating personalized study paths. They are also a means of improving accessibility, thanks to translation and subtitling functions, and of acquiring essential digital skills.
- For teachers, AI is an ally in the preparation of lessons, in the proposal of interactive content and in the evaluation of students. In research, it helps to process large amounts of data and identify relevant patterns in a short time.
- For administrative staff, it allows for the automation of many recurring tasks, such as transcribing meetings, managing appointments, and answering frequently asked questions, improving efficiency and freeing up human resources for more strategic tasks.
A centre to support transformation
To support this evolution, the University of Turin has established the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC), a center dedicated to educational innovation and continuous training of the teaching staff. The TLC promotes the conscious adoption of digital technologies and coordinates ongoing experiments, acting as a reference point for an updated, inclusive and participatory educational model.
On the research front, the Department of Computer Science is actively engaged in the development of projects related to machine learning, social computing and knowledge representation. Also interesting is the experience of the Department of Law, which experiments with the use of AI to accompany students who are not on track with the course of study.
Safety, ethics and transparency
The adoption of artificial intelligence inevitably involves ethical questions and demands for transparency. The Vice-Rector for AI, Guido Boella, stressed that the agreement with OpenAI and Microsoft not only allows the use of advanced tools, but also ensures that the data shared within the platforms is not used for the training of public models, thus protecting the confidentiality of sensitive information.
