I enjoyed your discussion of the future of universities, but don’t share your bleak view of their future. Here’s why—
1. Very few people pay the 400k sticker price—only the very rich and foreign (mainly Chinese) students.
2. I don’t think either of you appreciate how immature the current batch of 18 year olds are. The idea that they can acquire a university level education themselves via Google or AI is a hoot.
3. Universities currently provide more than strictly academic skills-they serve as agents of citizenship, socialization, and identity-formation, none of which can be acquired from AI.
4. AI presents problems for evaluation, since it has rendered the five page take-home essay redundant. No one has yet figured out how to replicate the skills (critical thinking, organizational and literary) that students acquire in writing essays. I like Keith’s suggestion that we should assess student’s ability - whether using AI or not—to take a distinctive personal stance on a body of knowledge. I worry that AI will make it difficult to distinguish “a distinctive personal stance” from a stance that has been entirely AI generated.
5. These are early days, and we are learning how to adapt to this new world.
I enjoyed your discussion of the future of universities, but don’t share your bleak view of their future. Here’s why—
1. Very few people pay the 400k sticker price—only the very rich and foreign (mainly Chinese) students.
2. I don’t think either of you appreciate how immature the current batch of 18 year olds are. The idea that they can acquire a university level education themselves via Google or AI is a hoot.
3. Universities currently provide more than strictly academic skills-they serve as agents of citizenship, socialization, and identity-formation, none of which can be acquired from AI.
4. AI presents problems for evaluation, since it has rendered the five page take-home essay redundant. No one has yet figured out how to replicate the skills (critical thinking, organizational and literary) that students acquire in writing essays. I like Keith’s suggestion that we should assess student’s ability - whether using AI or not—to take a distinctive personal stance on a body of knowledge. I worry that AI will make it difficult to distinguish “a distinctive personal stance” from a stance that has been entirely AI generated.
5. These are early days, and we are learning how to adapt to this new world.