Murray State’s new Dunker AI chatbot launched on Feb. 17, receiving a mixed reception from the student body. A 24/7 resource for students to contact, the University views the Dunker chatbot as a promising investment. Here at The News, we view this chatbot differently — as a waste of University resources.
The Dunker AI chatbot is a partnership with EdSights. The company creates AI chatbots for universities, themed after the school’s respective mascot, that reach out to students via text message. Here at Murray State, we have Dunker to answer our questions and redirect us to University resources.
Founded by two first-generation college students, EdSights helps universities with retention by giving students an easier way to get help for problems that could cause them to drop out.
Students having easy access to assistance is, undeniably, a good thing. However, using AI for this raises several issues. For one, we view the further implementation of AI into our education as problematic. While EdSights does not use GenAI in the same way as something like ChatGPT, it still raises similar concerns.
Wanting students to turn to AI as their first resource for help can be more detrimental to student success than helpful. While having an AI to contact seems beneficial for students with conditions such as anxiety, the truth is that it cannot solve everything. Several issues, such as those involving a professor, require face-to-face communication. Asking an AI for help will lead to students struggling to reach out to others and advocate for themselves.
The average four-year university, like Murray State, loses about $21,000 per student dropout. Naturally, student retention is important to universities, which makes EdSights’s pitch alluring. EdSights promises a 7% increase in student retention from the use of their program. While that stat checks out, we cannot help but feel that EdSights’s chatbot was a non-optimal investment.
EdSights gives the University easier access to student opinions, but it’s an overly expensive way to do so. According to the contract agreement between EdSights and Murray State University, the University is paying $75,600 for its first year with Dunker AI. Following this first year, the cost will rise to $94,500. This is an extraordinary amount of money for a simple chatbot.
. There are several less expensive alternatives, such as open-ended surveys, that the University could use instead of EdSights. If the University wants to listen to us, we are more than willing to talk.
As students, we know that complaints amongst the student body are not kept quiet, so we find it hard to believe that the University does not know that there are several more pressing issues on campus that we want to see solved. Parking all across campus is an unimaginable disaster, buildings such as Wilson Hall and the Business Building are practically falling apart and most of the campus’s dining options are vastly unpopular amongst students. Investing more money into solving these problems would likely cause a higher increase in student retention than any AI could.
With a nearly $100k price tag, EdSights undeniably loses its luster. We believe that this money would be much better spent elsewhere if student retention is the goal. If the University claims that it wants to listen, it should have known a chatbot is a pitiful attempt to keep us around in comparison to fixing the actual problems on campus.