This is such a grand title, but the conclusions are surprisingly tame.
- The take-home projects and papers are useless for grading purposes because of AI cheating. Time for more oral exams.
Yep, the only real change from AI. This used to be $50/page from diploma mill and this was expensive enough to dissuade most people. Now it's almost free, and cheating is rampant.
I think author's hope for oral exams is too optimistic, that is too expensive. Good old written exams, either in blue books or on special locked-down devices, proctored to prevent cheating, will be a way to go.
- It makes no sense for professors to stand in front of large classes and deliver lectures. They should do small, interactive seminars.
I don't see what this has to do with AI? Ever since VCR was invented, professors doing non-interactive lectures could be replaced with recordings. Either there is a "human element" in those, in which case it's still there, AI or not; or it's just pure information transfer, in which case AI is just an inferior version of recorded lecture with worse presentation style and hallucinations.
- Professors should teach about AI, include how to prompt efficiently and how to critically scrutinize the output
100% agree, as with any important technology. But this is just a small curriculum change, just one more topic to cover in the lecture, and maybe a class.
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Overall, I believe that modern university is pretty bad and should be changed, but I hardly think that AI made this problem significantly worse, and this essay really did not convince me of that.
>>Professors should teach about AI, include how to prompt efficiently and how to critically scrutinize the output
>100% agree, as with any important technology. But this is just a small curriculum change, just one more topic to cover in the lecture, and maybe a class.
Critically scrutinizing LLM output is just critical thinking skills, something universities should already teach.
I like the critique of the problem - unclear how many model releases the proposed solution helps (or should help, looks at student loan balance) the economic structure of a university survive.
This is such a grand title, but the conclusions are surprisingly tame.
- The take-home projects and papers are useless for grading purposes because of AI cheating. Time for more oral exams.
Yep, the only real change from AI. This used to be $50/page from diploma mill and this was expensive enough to dissuade most people. Now it's almost free, and cheating is rampant.
I think author's hope for oral exams is too optimistic, that is too expensive. Good old written exams, either in blue books or on special locked-down devices, proctored to prevent cheating, will be a way to go.
- It makes no sense for professors to stand in front of large classes and deliver lectures. They should do small, interactive seminars.
I don't see what this has to do with AI? Ever since VCR was invented, professors doing non-interactive lectures could be replaced with recordings. Either there is a "human element" in those, in which case it's still there, AI or not; or it's just pure information transfer, in which case AI is just an inferior version of recorded lecture with worse presentation style and hallucinations.
- Professors should teach about AI, include how to prompt efficiently and how to critically scrutinize the output
100% agree, as with any important technology. But this is just a small curriculum change, just one more topic to cover in the lecture, and maybe a class.
---
Overall, I believe that modern university is pretty bad and should be changed, but I hardly think that AI made this problem significantly worse, and this essay really did not convince me of that.
>>Professors should teach about AI, include how to prompt efficiently and how to critically scrutinize the output
>100% agree, as with any important technology. But this is just a small curriculum change, just one more topic to cover in the lecture, and maybe a class.
Critically scrutinizing LLM output is just critical thinking skills, something universities should already teach.
> I think author's hope for oral exams is too optimistic, that is too expensive.
Ironically AI is perfect for quizzing you.
We let the university model degrade, and now this author is pontificating about how the university model isn't working.
Yes.
Because we let it degrade.
I like the emphasis on the development of the individual as a mentally co-ordinated cognitive whole.
Carbon-based lifeforms gotta give the silicon-based a run for their money.
I like the critique of the problem - unclear how many model releases the proposed solution helps (or should help, looks at student loan balance) the economic structure of a university survive.