I have to admit I love the doom and gloom of this article, Memo to Faculty: AI is not your friend.
A FlowChart: Stages of AI Adoption in Higher Education
For fun, I cooked up this chart in Mermaid code (so much fun!):
Key Points
Some key points from the article as identified by Claude.ai; my comments follow as quoted text:
- AI might replace professors in many college courses by 2030. It will start as an assistant, then become a co-teacher, and finally take over completely.
You can see this happening already, right? AI is already an assistant. Once given physical form or a consistent way to interact with students via a Learning management system, co-teaching won’t be too far behind…after that, it’s really about improving the presence of the AI in the classroom, which will happen incrementally.
- Students want instant help and support, even late at night. AI can provide this, while human professors can’t. This is one reason why AI teaching might become popular.
This is one of the great benefits of AI…that it can provide support when humans can’t.
- Professors think AI can’t replace them because it lacks human knowledge and relationships with students. But this underestimates what AI can do. What matters is what students want, not what professors think.
The highlighted portion above is what is most important to keep in mind. Professors are married to their way of doing things, but students don’t care. They want to get what they want (presumably, a degree that translates into money for them) and then graduate to more money earning possibilities.
- To slow down AI taking over teaching, professors should focus on critical thinking, hands-on learning, connecting with students, and not using AI tools to help with grading, making slideshows, etc.
I disagree with this assertion. Professors need to jump into the mix. Resistance, to quote Star Trek’s Borg, may be futile, but it’s futile because it offers a better, more efficient way of getting things done (at least, from the students' perspective). Does that mean professors will be out of a job? Possibly, but I doubt it. My experience with technology is that it simply changes things, it doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t be needed. It DOES mean re-training for professors in their teaching role…but what professor wouldn’t want more time to generate new ideas and research for consumption by the AI overlords? Hmm…
- AI teaching could save money for colleges and help more students. But it’s risky for professors' jobs and might make education worse in some ways. Professors should be careful about letting AI into their classes.
Given how much money Big Tech is bringing to the equation, AI is an unstoppable force. Those professors who don’t want AI will lose their jobs or get kicked out.
Of course, I don’t have any research or evidence to support my opinions, half-baked and typed up in slow, human fashion over the course of 10 minutes. The truth might be scarier or so different as to defy prediction.
Off to pop some popcorn…the question bugging me? What’s the K-12 version of this?