Just a few years ago, terms such as “unicorn” or “stardust” would hardly have been considered serious headlines. Today, they are examples of so-called AI prompts and illustrate the rapid change brought about by artificial intelligence. The students of class 11be at Walter Gropius Gymnasium in Selb learned just how profound this development is on February 2, 2026.
At the invitation of senior teacher Stefan Meyer, Prof. Dr. René Peinl from Hof University of Applied Sciences was a guest in the computer science class. Peinl heads the Institute for Information Systems (iisys) there and is research group leader for multimodal artificial intelligence. In his lecture, he gave a well-founded overview of the current state of AI research.
Optimists and skeptics in comparison
Prof. Peinl began by examining the topic from different perspectives. He presented both the arguments of AI optimists and the concerns of AI skeptics and showed how rapidly AI systems have developed in recent years. While chatbots still failed at simple arithmetic tasks in 2023, they were already achieving top performances by 2025, such as winning a gold medal at the Math Olympics.
Responsible use of AI
A particular focus was placed on the sensible use of artificial intelligence in education. Prof. Peinl advised the students not to use AI as a substitute for their own thinking, but as a tool to better understand solutions. He reported from everyday university life that AI is being used improperly because the desire to learn is increasingly being replaced by the desire to obtain a degree with as little stress as possible.
Trying out AI for yourself
The lecture was made practical through the use of the university’s own AI services. With the access data provided, the students were able to test the chatbot “LISA” and the image generation tool “LUIS.” Creative tasks such as designing a fantasy creature resulted in unusual prompt formulations, as reflected in the topic’s headline.
Interest and outlook
Throughout the double lesson, the young people showed great interest and engagement. At the end, Prof. Peinl put forward a provocative thesis:
The year 2026 could be the year in which artificial intelligence surpasses average human intelligence for the first time.
Prof. Dr. René Peinl
