Universities in the age of AI

Hollis Robbins is one of the most thoughtful commentators on how artificial intelligence is reshaping education. Her latest piece is, once again, bang on the money.

She has consistently pointed out the futility or rather, the growing obsolescence of modern university education ie., That is the information delivery and credential selling model of education is dead. I think she’s right.

So I am proposing something even more radical: unbundle general education from universities entirely. State legislatures: this is for you. Contract with AI firms to handle standardized content delivery for the general education content you’re mandating. Do it at the high school level, better yet. Let universities focus exclusively on educating students directly, with mentorship and community. The “magic dust” of a college degree would then only sanctify genuine human transformation, not completed coursework.

The ubiquity of online asynchronous courses demonstrates that universities haven’t actually internalized their own rhetoric about human development. They’re still operating on an industrial model of content delivery while claiming to be in the human transformation business. AI poses an existential threat to university’s process more than its product.

Pait this with her other brilliant post.