The last two years have seen increased activity and concern about the implications of AI on higher education. Although things have moved at lightening pace, it is still early days. There is limited consensus and institutions are taking a range of approaches.
From our work across the sector, we can point to several factors of note:
- Senior University leaders benefit from a fundamental understanding of digital technology. Such understanding needs to go beyond the ‘I love my new iPhone’ appreciation. It needs a fundamental knowledge of digital – the 0s and the 1s, how digital artefacts are created and how they are manipulated. By having that expertise, leaders can then start to understand what ‘could’ happen.
- Universities are inclined to focus on how AI effects what they deliver. That, however, is the easy bit. The difficult bit is thinking about how AI will already have shaped learners before they start University and also, how AI will impact graduates’ working lives. This needs better interaction with Schools and Colleges to deal with those who are coming in. It also needs better industry relationships so that University efforts are aligned to workplace needs.
- The central (but very deep) question is how AI will change human development from birth to death. Only by getting to grips with this can Universities respond appropriately. Education has held a privileged position as the most powerful factor in personal development after parenting. That position (and everything goes with it) is no longer secure though. Merely protecting the territory as an incumbent education institution is unlikely to be effective in the long term.
