Co-inference and collaboration: empowering higher education staff and students through a GenAI literacy development framework based on mind-metaphors

Higher education staff and students are beginning to emerge from the liminal space created by the exponential rise in generative artificial intelligence technologies such as large language models. Both groups exhibit a low or developing understanding of the issues related with the use of such tools. On one hand, staff in many institutions are concerned about critical skills development, academic integrity, ethical implications and the long-term cognitive effects of the use of such tools. Equally, students are concerned about the acceptability of the use of such tools at university and the need to develop work-related GenAI skills. On the other hand, foundational large language models are being trained on larger and better data sets and have evolved into ‘reasoning’ models that can allegedly ‘think’. Furthermore, with the emergence of agentic AI, systems that can ‘act’ independently, claims of shifting agency away from humans to machines are common. This has implications for the world of work and for higher education institutions. This opinion piece presents a new framework that I have developed for enhancing the GenAI literacy of staff and students and to empower and augment themselves with GenAI tools in a balanced, meaningful and collaborative way, whilst maintaining their agency. The mind-metaphors framework includes techniques such as mind-surfing, mind-mending, mind-bending, mind-gaming, mind-storming and mind-stretching, which can help staff and students to develop trust in their chosen GenAI models and master co-inference and collaborative GenAI use.