Artificial intelligence and university degrees

Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) spell the end of university education? Or can universities reclaim their prestige? Maybe we need to go back to the past to find a solution.

There is a risk that universities could become "legacy institutions": institutions with a glorious history but not much of a future. Certainly, in terms of teaching, learning has become democratised.

You Tube and other online platforms have opened up a new world of learning, such as TED talks. Meanwhile chat groups and other fora have created in effect learning webinars.

Yes: the "university experience" is different from what dinosaurs like myself enjoyed as undergraduates decades ago. But young people make their own reality. They live in a different world with different expectations.

The remaining university monopoly is that piece of paper upon graduation. As long as that piece of paper retains its value, parents and carers will encourage students to go to university.

But now AI even threatens to erode that piece of paper's value.

A great deal of university assessment is done via some of form of essay-writing. AI is increasing in its ability to write essays.

AI is currently the dumbest it will ever be. Everyday AI is becoming more expert at writing essays.

In the 1970s and 1980s we dinosaurs led a revolution in university assessment. Before the revolution, a person's assessment would be done by (say) a three-hour unseen examination paper.

In some universities, the tests were called "finals". They determined that student's future status as a graduate (or as a failure to graduate). It was a time of great stress knowing that the entire assessment would be summed up in three hours. Too bad if the person was having an "off" day. We may even recall suicides of fellow students or at least their nervous breakdown as D-Day approached.

We successfully campaigned for our successors to be granted "continual assessment". In other words, the importance of the unseen question paper was reduced and instead students were assessed along the way, such as by writing essays.

Now AI can write those essays.