Faculty: Drew Ashby-King

Dr. Drew Ashby-King accepts that people will likely continue to use artificial intelligence (AI) — in fact his current research explores topics around the technology — but he is adamant that his East Carolina University students first should learn the process of writing without it.

Ashby-King has taught in the School of Communication (SOC) since fall 2023 and asks his public relations and corporate writing students to not use AI. In the class, he helps students learn to write for the types of companies they might like to work for.

“If you’re going to write, you need to write and you need to value the writing process,” he said. “For any job that involves writing, your first draft will never be perfect, it will need revision. If you can understand that and you can build out a writing process then, theoretically, there is space where you can add an AI tool into it.

Dr. Drew Ashby-King teaches public relations principles in the School of Communication this fall.

“But if you’re just editing the AI-produced text, that’s where we start to see too much repetition. I feel strongly that you need to know how to write to use these tools effectively.”

Ashby-King’s research at ECU has looked deeper into those tools, how they’re used and how people react to them. Last year he worked with Drs. Rachel Son and Erika Johnson to study AI use in entertainment and how that affects people’s understanding and perception of the technology, when an AI character was introduced to a social experiment TV program without the other participants’ knowledge.

Now he’s working on AI research with Dr. Matthew Salzano from Stony Brook University and Ilaria Noonan, an SOC and Honors College alumna pursuing a master’s degree at Illinois State University. The team’s first research paper, funded by a Waterhouse Family Institute (Villanova University) grant, offers ideas for social change communicators to use AI in ways that center human participation in their messaging, based on in-depth interviews with 22 such communicators about their use of and concerns around AI.

Next, Ashby-King said they will focus on four examples of ethical decision making from their research participants.

“The goal is to use these cases to consider the question, what does ethical AI use in public relations for social change look like and what are the implications of AI use,” he said. “Our research is not designed to say this is right or wrong, but to think through those decision-making structures, because at the end of the day, it’s all about choice.

“We’re not arguing that everybody should divest completely from AI; it’s not realistic. At the very least, instead of using AI simply because it’s available to you, it is important to consider the impact of your choices around AI use; what do you gain, what do you lose, and is the tradeoff worth it?”

Research isn’t where Ashby-King expected to spend his time, but he tells students, “The road can be windy and that’s okay.” While he finished his undergraduate degree at Bowling Green State University and sought master’s programs, Ashby-King thought he would pursue a career on the campus life side of higher education. When he started a master’s degree at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, he quickly realized he favored the academic side.

He doesn’t prescribe to spending all one’s time on one area of expertise, instead following topics that interest or intrigue him. His doctoral dissertation at the University of Maryland was inspired by watching the 2021 documentary “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal,” which explores the scandal of bribery to enroll children of rich and famous families into top U.S. colleges and universities. Ashby-King was struck by students who claimed getting into college is difficult and worried for their own future children.

“I’m a product of a regional institution in Ohio that accepted 75-ish percent of their applicants,” he said. “There are a number of schools designed as access institutions; their very intent is to serve the community. Yet the students in the documentary seemed to have only one vision of college: highly selective, private institution. That was the dynamic I was interested in. The most interesting places in research are things that you observe and go, ‘That doesn’t make sense. Why is that where we are?’”

In just his fourth year at ECU, Ashby-King’s curiosity, teaching and research have resulted in university-wide recognition. This spring he won the Early Career Trendsetter Award, and last year he received one of two Outstanding Mentor Awards from the Honors College, nominated by Noonan.

He expressed excitement and gratitude for both awards, especially the recognition as a mentor, a title that can take years to earn. He credited Noonan’s strong writing in the nomination.

“What was particularly meaningful with that one is I had no idea the award existed, and I had no idea she nominated me,” Ashby-King said. “It was really nice and I appreciated that.”

Because he said communication research often doesn’t attract as much grant funding as other areas, Ashby-King said he appreciates ECU’s recognition of a broad range of academic pursuits with the Trendsetter Awards.

“The fact that they’ve built out the Trendsetter Awards as more open to folks who are doing a variety of research and creative activity, gives more space to show this is the breadth of excellent work happening at ECU,” he said.

Ashby-King said he pursues ideas that animate him, and encourages his students to do the same, like taking time to explore opportunities that appear on the periphery because they might become the most important.

“I’m trying to help them realize that their life is likely not going to be a line from point A to point B as they might envision it; my own life certainly hasn’t been,” he said. “I think about higher education not just as preparation to become a worker, but as the opportunity to better understand the world around us and become contributing members of our communities and society.”