| I ended 2025 by giving a series of presentations covering the key insights we learned during the year about how the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) systems might affect some of the most basic behaviors and capabilities of humans – attributes such as empathy, emotional intelligence, curiosity and creativity. In important ways, those insights applied to three distinct audiences I addressed – leaders in higher education, innovators in library services and knowledge management professionals.
Of these speeches, the one I gave to the deans of dental schools covered the most extensive range of subjects tied to AI, higher education and the essence of being human.
I went through the history of the Imagining the Digital Future Center’s (ITDF) explorations of AI, starting with a report we issued in 2014 in which experts predicted the impact of AI on jobs in a decade – the year 2025. One of the recurring themes of expert opinions in that report was that a vast economic restructuring would take place in which human “soft skills” like judgment, critical thinking and intuition would grow in importance as machines took over more mundane job tasks.
For instance, Deborah Lupton, at that time a research professor on the faculty of an Australian university, predicted in that 2014 report: “These [AI] technologies will displace some jobs, but they will also create others. Humans will always have the need for affective and embodied interactions with other humans, which can never be replaced by robots. This will particularly be the case in the context of healthcare, education, childcare and the care of the elderly.”
Advances in AI systems have reached a point that they are being designed to mimic some of those basic human behaviors and emotional capacities. Thus, we did several studies last year focused on expert and public opinion about the effect of AI on 12 key human traits. The findings were challenging: Experts were worried about the negative effect of AI on nine of the bedrock human attributes we queried; the general public was worried about the impact of AI on all of the traits on our list.
I argued that these findings – bleak as they were – could be a roadmap for leaders in higher education as they think about the core human skills and capacities that can be cultivated in the Age of AI. Drawing on the thinking of my colleague, Peter Felten, Director of Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning, I argued that:
· AI can transform how students and faculty think about academic work
· AI can help students and instructors practice difficult things
· AI can be a feedback coach to faculty and students
· AI can change our conceptions of learning and well-being
In my talk, I also drew on our research with the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U), in which we surveyed 337 college leaders – presidents, provosts, chancellors and high-ranking deans – about the effect AI is having on their campuses. One set of findings was stark in highlighting the bifurcated world these higher education leaders feel they face. On the one hand, they generally thought that AI would affect these activities for the better in the coming years:
- Enhance student outcomes
- Improve student research skills
- Lead to better student writing
- Increase student creativity
On the other hand, majorities of the leaders also felt AI would affect these activities for the worse in the coming years:
- Worsen academic integrity issues
- Increase student dependence on AI
- Lead to greater digital inequalities among students
- Decrease student attention spans
At the end of January, Imagining the Digital Future Center joined with AA&U in reporting on how faculty around the nation feel about these and other AI-related issues. That report was titled: The AI Challenge: How college faculty assess the present and future of higher education in the age of AI. |
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