Educators in Transition: Unpacking Argentinean Teachers' Attitudes Towards AI in Higher Education

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is revolutionizing the way we live, learn, and work. In academic settings, AI tools such as chatbots, machine translation and plagiarism detectors are becoming increasingly popular. However, as the use of AI by students becomes more widespread, concerns about the impact it may have on learning, academic integrity, and the role of traditional teaching methods are growing. This paper aims to explore the perspectives of Argentinean teachers on the use of AI in higher education and on its advantages and drawbacks. Through qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys, we investigated how much knowledge teachers have about AI and whether or not they perceive its potential benefits and challenges and its impact on their teaching practices. Results show that L2 instructors exhibit varying levels of familiarity and experience with AI tools, specifically Generative Machine Translation (GMT) and chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT). Notably, there exists a degree of reluctance among instructors towards incorporating AI tools into language classes, stemming from concerns related to potential hindrances to language development, over-reliance on technology, and accuracy, among other considerations.