The Office of University Relations recently held a student essay contest asking students to reflect on the promise and peril of technology and, among the many submissions, two outstanding responses were chosen as co-winners. Both winning submissions showed imaginative thinking, intelligence, and an unwillingness to engage in the types of thinking that either praise technology as humanity’s savior or demonize it as our inevitable bringer of demise.
Congratulations to Janicee Mack, a graduate student studying Human Resource Management and Leadership in the MBA program, and Dominique Delgado, who is pursuing her Bachelor's degree in Biological and Physical Sciences.
For her part, Delgado focused on emotions and ethics, writing that the anxieties and, in some cases, very real dangers, around artificial intelligence (AI) are not a finale, but “an invitation...my generation has the rare privilege to reformulate the ideas of justice and value in the age of AI.” She went on to express her aspiration to not just create and administer safe systems, but ones that beget dignity by equitably interfacing machine values with the human ones we hold as right and true.
Mack meanwhile wrote that “technology is not just a tool but a lifeline,” allowing for increased professional excellence, educational achievement, and closer ties with loved ones. Both compass and connector, she said, the technologies she uses at work (data systems, video meetings, etc.) and in her personal life (group chats, her child’s learning management system) help give her life shape while also allowing her to steward the lives of her children and those she leads at work.
Taken together, these two prize-winning essays show a depth of consideration and willingness to wade into deep intellectual waters in search of the best ways to evaluate and use technology in all areas of life, something that all students can do when they enroll in the free, online micro-credential in Technology that will be available in 2026. Please join us in congratulating these two outstanding Gators!