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Navigating the Blessing–Curse Paradox: An Ecological Perspective of Cultivating a Culture of Responsible Generative AI Use in Higher Education
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative artificial intelligence (GAI), has positioned educational institutions and individual learners at the crossroads of opportunity and risk, highlighting both significant benefits and potential drawbacks. In this context, fostering a culture of responsible and meaningful GAI use has become essential for leveraging its advantages while mitigating associated challenges. This chapter presents the results of two phenomenological qualitative studies that explore this cultural dimension. Study one examined Russian university professors' perspectives on the articulation of individual and organizational GAI standards, while Study two investigated the views of Russian educational managers, aiming to provide a balanced assessment of guidelines at both levels. Employing semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, the findings illuminate how individual or microsystem, and organizational, or mesosystem interactions and tensions shape the development of guidelines and practices that promote a responsible approach to GAI use in higher education. At the microsystem level, individual faculty seek awareness, autonomy, and ethical engagement with GAI, while at the mesosystem level, organizational structures, guidelines, and policies mediate these efforts, negotiating the balance between individual practices and institutional support and accountability. The results highlight that responsible GAI governance emerges not as a set of static rules but through ongoing interactions between individual agency and organizational frameworks. Future research can incorporate observational data, longitudinal designs, or cross-cultural comparisons to further validate and extend these insights.