Local Wisdom in Fiction Text Comprehension Between Students and AIs

Abstract

This study aims to compare the level of understanding of local wisdom values in short stories between students and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The participants were 474 students from various universities in Indonesia: Al-Asyariah Mandar University, Makassar State University, Manado State University, West Sulawesi University, and Timor University. Meanwhile, five AIs were involved as nonhuman subjects: ChatGPT, Chatsonic, Claude AI, Gemini, and Perplexity. The analysis techniques used in this study include independent sample t-test and Fisher’s one-way ANOVA to compare the understanding of local wisdom between students and AI systems as well as between different groups of students. Findings show that AIs have a significantly higher understanding of local wisdom than university students, with AIs such as ChatGPT and Claude AI significantly outperforming. In addition, females have a significantly better understanding of local wisdom than males, while there are no significant differences based on domicile. Students from Al-Asyariah Mandar University have a better understanding. The implications of this study indicate the need for more inclusive and gender-sensitive curriculum development and increased integration of AI technology in education to enrich the understanding of local wisdom. Future research can explore other factors influencing the understanding of local wisdom and evaluate the long-term impact of AI in culture and literature learning.