It's the technology everyone is talking about.

Sometimes the talk is positive, sometimes it's negative.

Artificial intelligence or AI has arrived at Kentucky's colleges and great schools.

Our June Lefler has more from the state's AI task force.

And today's legislative update.

This is the second year committee of lawmakers have met to discuss AI in the Commonwealth.

Officials with the Kentucky Department of Education testified in Frankfort Tuesday, the very first time that a bunch of teachers got together, and we realized that our students could Google search for basic answers to questions we were asking.

That was a moment for us to redefine exactly what we were asking and redefine what what really demonstrations of learning meant.

And we're at that moment again, this is as transformative a as a moment.

Teachers are meeting that moment.

Already rolling out AI in the classroom.

Our teachers are being thoughtful, especially in their lesson plan design.

And they're power users right now in Kentucky about using this for the lesson plan.

And they're writing prompts and getting feedback.

Students in very control settings are starting to be permitted to use it and use it in the classroom.

Same goes for higher education.

Kentucky colleges are using AI to.

I'm pleased to say that, I feel like they've all embraced, AI to its fullest and will continue to do this.

For example, AI is now in college coursework and not just computer science degrees and chat bots are talking to prospective students to navigate the admissions process.

It really hit.

They've really used AI and all the different areas.

So when you look at teaching and learning, we look at research and community engagement, using it for their own business and how they actually, service students and do the business of, of, of being a governmental entity as the campuses are and, making sure that it's being used ethically and effectively.

The leaders of Kentucky's legislative AI committee describe how they've seen it work in education and where it might fall short.

I have a senior and a freshman.

My senior hates linguistics.

He hates words, vocab.

He struggles.

Always has.

So he started using Chad's ability to put words he wasn't quite sure, and various sentences so he could see how a word might be used, but don't want to tell anybody that he didn't know other ways it was being used, and so very quickly used a tool and become better educated.

And that's something that when you have a tool that can help spell those on special needs or have spectrum issues or have learning disabilities, I think there's some really cool AI tools that will be really helpful.

Personalized learning that may move the needle in ways that we just don't have enough teachers to do in the classroom.

But I am concerned that it's going to become a crutch.

And some of the most important lessons that I think kids may need to be taught are the soft skills that were presented through, you know, sRGB had a slot on that, just the interpersonal reactions, like what it's like to have a conversation with somebody one on one, what's what.

It's like when an issue in life pops up.

How do you how do you problem solve for it?

The task force could proposed legislation around this topic.

This year the state did pass AI legislation.

Senate Bill four required AI policies for state agencies, and it most notably addressed AI deepfakes, upping penalties for anyone digitally impersonating a political candidate before an election.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Jim Leffler.

Thank you.

June.

The University of Kentucky could be the state and world's new AI hub.

UK received a nearly $1 million grant to form the research, evaluation and Analytics Capacity Hub.

It's an international initiative aimed at exploring the responsible use of data and AI in research.