Michael Clune writes:

After three years of doing essentially nothing to address the rise of generative AI, colleges are now scrambling to do too much. Over the summer, Ohio State University, where I teach, announced a new initiative promising to “embed AI education into the core of every undergraduate curriculum, equipping students with the ability to not only use AI tools, but to understand, question and innovate with them—no matter their major.” Similar initiatives are being rolled out at other universities, including the University of Florida and the University of Michigan. Administrators understandably want to “future proof” their graduates at a time when the workforce is rapidly transforming. But such policies represent a dangerously hasty and uninformed response to the technology. Based on the available evidence, the skills that future graduates will most need in the AI era—creative thinking, the capacity to learn new things, flexible modes of analysis—are precisely those that are likely to be eroded by inserting AI into the educational process.

Before embarking on a wholesale transformation, the field of higher education needs to ask itself two questions: What abilities do students need to thrive in a world of automation? And does the incorporation of AI into education actually provide those abilities?

The skills needed to thrive in an AI world might counterintuitively be exactly those that the liberal arts have long cultivated. Students must be able to ask AI questions, critically analyze its written responses, identify possible weaknesses or inaccuracies, and integrate new information with existing knowledge. The automation of routine cognitive tasks also places greater emphasis on creative human thinking. Students must be able to envision new solutions, make unexpected connections, and judge when a novel concept is likely to be fruitful. Finally, students must be comfortable and adept at grasping new concepts. This requires a flexible intelligence, driven by curiosity. Perhaps this is why the unemployment rate for recent art-history graduates is half that of recent computer-science grads. [Continue reading…]