As artificial intelligence reshapes higher education, students and professors alike weigh the balance between innovation and integrity.
Aitana Salmeron | Contributing Writer
Artificial intelligence has become the talk of the campus. Recognizable names such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot are used daily, but the AI search engine on everyone’s mind is Liner. It has gained popularity among students, researchers, and professors alike. At FIU, about 1% of the university community has registered accounts with Liner, according to the company.
As AI becomes more advanced and educators adapt to it, the question remains: where do colleges draw the line between teaching and sitting idle?
Liner focuses on producing accurate and reliable information, tagging every answer with a cited source. Based on OpenAI’s SimpleAQ benchmark, it earned the title of the world’s most accurate AI search engine, outperforming ChatGPT 4.5, Perplexity, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
“We build the world’s most reliable AI tools,” said Kyum Kim, Liner’s U.S. head. “It’s important for people to have credible, reliable sources.” Liner uses a database of verified materials, ranked and filtered for quality, to generate answers. Kim said their mission is to “accelerate the process of generating new knowledge and advancing science.”
AI’s role in education continues to grow, even as some fear it encourages academic laziness. Kim disagrees. “AI just frees us from tedious and repetitive tasks and lets us focus on generating new things and being more creative,” he said.
He noted that many professors are starting to embrace AI rather than resist it. “They’re slowly figuring out how to bake AI into their teachings,” Kim said. “I’ve never met an undergrad who doesn’t use ChatGPT or another AI. If everyone’s using it, you might as well make the best out of it.”
At the University of Michigan, Assistant Professor Jaerock Kwon has witnessed AI’s impact firsthand. “Before the release of ChatGPT in 2022, the impact of advancing AI in the classroom was not noticeable,” he said. “But after ChatGPT-4 in 2023, things began to change. Assignments that worked for decades are no longer valid forms of assessment.”
Kwon, who teaches electrical and computer engineering, uses AI tools, including Liner, daily in his own research. “My day hasn’t passed without using AI,” he said. “It helps me generate ideas for research topics, refine my approaches, and validate experimental results.”
Still, Kwon acknowledges AI’s flaws. “The answers are based on probabilistic inference,” he said. “They may differ and are not always good. There must be a highly experienced human expert to guide AI through a maze of questions and answers.”
Despite these concerns, Kwon believes students should be encouraged to use AI responsibly. “Think about Google Search. When it first came out, some thought it would destroy our intelligence. The same was said about YouTube,” he said. “New technologies will arrive regardless. Students need to learn how to wisely utilize them to enhance their learning. Learning itself should be redefined, since AI will be part of human intelligence.”
Both Kim and Kwon agree that AI’s role in higher education will only continue to grow. Kwon predicts classrooms will shift toward hands-on, project-based learning that AI cannot replace. “AI will be our companion, not just a helper,” he said. “We will constantly interact with it to solve problems, and the quality of our work will be significantly improved.”
Kim sees a similar future. “Our goal is to build trusted and reliable AI tools for people to find information and complete new research,” he said. “Humanity will always be generating new knowledge and advancing science. We are in this for the long term.”
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