How is UNamur reinventing training to meet the challenges of tomorrow?

This article is taken from the "Issues" section of Omalius magazine's June 2024 issue.

Not so long ago, artificial intelligence seemed the sole preserve of Hollywood screenwriters and geeks. But the arrival of the ChatGPT conversational robot at the end of 2022 made all sectors realize that it was now impossible to ignore AI-related issues. "Departments of medicine, veterinary medicine, management, communications...everyone started asking me", recalls Benoît Frenay, professor of computer science at UNamur. "In the Faculty of Computer Science, we've been interested in AI for a long time, and it's been an integral part of our training courses. But over the past 10 years, we've realized that AI is percolating faster and faster through all strata of society. With ChatGPT, this has accelerated even further. Somewhere along the line, it was no longer credible not to have a dedicated teaching unit."

From the start of the new academic year, a course on AI will therefore be offered to all Block 3 students, with the aim of showing "how it came about and how it works, going beyond the 'café du commerce' considerations we hear a little too often in the media." Legal, ethical, managerial and even pedagogical aspects of AI will be addressed thanks to contributions from teachers from various faculties. "We will show how AI is used in each discipline, so that students can gain an insight into both the risks and opportunities in their field, Benoît Frenay continues. Research-based teaching, which also serves as a reminder that AI is not the preserve of the private sector.

Let's take doctors. Today, the quality of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) images depends on the power of the magnet. But can we, as some companies are proposing, use less powerful magnets from now on, and then enlist the help of AI to improve these images? "AI can show what should normally be there, but for all that, it doesn't necessarily show what's really there"details Benoît Frenay.

In the medical field, AI is also set to play an increasingly important role in decision support. Even if medicine remains an art... "If you're 27 years old and have just finished medical school, how will you react if the AI proposes a diagnosis that doesn't seem right to you?" questions Benoît Frenay. "If you do as you think and screw up, you'll blame yourself for not following the AI's recommendations. But conversely, if you follow the AI and you were in fact right, you'll blame yourself for having put your critical mind in the checkroom..." Because a good use of AI also requires a knowledge of the workings of human psychology... "Let's be honest: if AI allows you to make 100 correct decisions, by the 101st, you're not going to be paying attention anymore." By shedding light on the technical aspects of AI, this course will provide a foundation from which students can develop critical thinking, in connection with the "tensions and uncertainties"proper to their discipline.

The use of AI, moreover, itself comes into tension with another major societal issue: sustainable development. "AI consumes like crazy", sums up Benoît Frenay. "Or AI's share of global energy consumption is constantly increasing.... Students need to be made aware of this: if I can solve my problem without AI, it's better from an energy point of view.Twenty ChatGPT queries consume a liter of water. Using AI is a bit like turning on a tap: perhaps it should be seen as a common good that shouldn't be abused..."

Today, sustainable development is precisely at the heart of many courses at UNamur, both in initial and further training. "Today, after 10 or 15 years in the working world, many people feel the need to readjust their skills and knowledge", comments Johan Yans, head of the Certificat inter universités et hautes écoles en Développement Durable. For the past ten years, this training course, which runs over 13 Fridays, has welcomed 24 to 30 participants each year: workers sent by their organizations, people wishing to train on a personal basis, but also participants who have left their jobs and are looking to reorient themselves towards a profession that makes sense to them.

The training lays the foundations in various fields related to sustainable development: climate, biodiversity, corporate social responsibility, economics, resources, law, etc. "The aim is to show that all these aspects are linked,"comments Johan Yans. "In the context of climate, we're obviously tackling energy since we're talking about CO2 emissions, linked to fossil fuels. So we're going to look at mobility, land-use planning, cars, the mineral resources needed for new batteries if cars are electric, or coal gas if cars are thermal. So we're going to be talking about copper, cobalt, indium, mining in such and such a part of the world and therefore reducing biodiversity, ethics, geopolitics, law, economics..." Discovering these interactions allows us to move away from the "y-a-qu'à" logic to confront the real complexity of the issues at stake.

The new specialization master's degree in sustainable development management and economics, which starts next fall, is also in line with this desire to think realistically about the issues involved in the ecological transition, in this case in the economic, management and business sectors."In companies and public administrations, most of those working in the field have not initially been trained in these new issues. They are sometimes offered short modules to understand certain aspects of the transition, but this can leave them helpless in the face of this paradigm shift with its many implications," recounts Jean-Yves Gnabo, professor in the Department of Economics and Management. "Jobs related to sustainable development are being created, but for these projects to be carried out successfully, we need people capable of piloting them..." This training course, the university's only degree program on sustainable development, will therefore offer a broad vision of the issues and practices, thanks to speakers - academics or players in the field, sometimes from abroad - recognized as experts in their field of expertise. "We'll also be working with a range of partners who will share the concrete issues they face, and which students will be able to grasp. So there will be a direct grip on the real world,"concludes Jean-Yves Gnabo.

Julie Luong

Three questions to Valérie Tilman, substitute teacher in the Department of Sciences, Philosophies and Societies and holder of the course "Transition and Sustainability: theories, models and ideologies at play. An interdisciplinary approach".

Omalius: Why this course?

Valérie Tilman: When this course was created, these subjects were not covered in all faculties. Today, courses have been created or are in the process of being created in every faculty to integrate these issues.

O.: What does this interdisciplinary approach teach us?

V.T. : It enables us to better grasp the complexity of the issues at stake, and to better think through possible responses. The issues addressed by the course are as follows: firstly, our modes of organization have generated a major ecological crisis from which humanity, living things in general and ecosystems will not emerge unscathed; secondly, these modes of organization create and reproduce growing inequalities, relations of domination and destructive conflicts; thirdly, social and environmental disasters are interdependent and reinforce each other, so they must not be addressed separately. Thus, it can no longer be argued that it is acceptable to "temporarily" degrade the environment in order to improve people's lives, since such degradation will in every case have repercussions on humans and other living things.

O.: The term "transition" sometimes seems to be misused: how do you understand it?

V.T. : That's why I wanted to change the title of the course, formerly entitled "What transitions for a more just and sustainable world? ": so as not to give the impression that it's a propaganda course on transition or sustainable development. One of the aims of the course is to identify notions that present themselves as new paradigms, but are in some cases no more than "marketing" concepts to justify greenwashing practices. We must try to avoid angelism and take a step back from the ready-made solutions presented to us. Do organic tomatoes from supermarkets, electric cars, nuclear power, digital technology and AI in all its guises really improve things socially and on the social front? Is this the direction in which we need to rethink modes of production, consumption and governance?