With the largely unregulated release of both domestic and foreign-based artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the United States, corporations, businesses, and governmental institutions are seeking sustainable policy solutions to address disruptions to their normal organizational operations.
American higher education institutions, as corporations tasked with maintaining institutional solvency and delivering rigorous educational programs, are also facing a host of challenges as the U.S. transitions into a new AI age.
To adapt to this new AI age, university administrators must first comprehend that internet-based policies and systems will not provide the most effective delivery of educational services in this newly unfolding AI world.
In many ways, AI in the American higher education sphere is much akin to a “gray rhino” scenario:
[A] highly probable, high-impact threat that is often overlooked or ignored despite clear warning signs. It’s similar to the “elephant in the room” in that it’s an obvious problem that people are hesitant to address, and like a “black swan,” it can have a significant impact. However, unlike black swans, gray rhinos are not unexpected; they are preceded by visible evidence and warnings.
Universities must be reorganized and restructured to craft new educational paradigms that maintain the rigors of traditional academia while also adapting to the newly emergent technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. University leaders must control AI lest AI and its digital creators control them.
Technology firms have designed their technology based on power laws and psychologically based behavioral studies to keep the user locked in. As each new technology develops and is integrated into our economic system, citizens are essentially forced to adapt to it or be left behind to the point where they cannot function in society.
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Technological accelerationism is supported by highly influential tech moguls and financiers on both the right and the left in the U.S., and permissionless innovation—the removal of precautionary measures to spur creative industries and growth—has become the mantra of Silicon Valley tech firms. This techno-plutocratic laissez-faire vision negates clearly defined goals, and while facilitating growth, this growth often comes at the expense of increased risk of unintended or unpredictable consequences.
As Open AI CEO Sam Altman has stated, “The technological progress we make in the next one-hundred years, will be far larger than all we’ve made since we first controlled fire and invented the wheel.” Whether one agrees with exponential technological progress or not is irrelevant, for it is a reality, and AI singularity is approaching at a rapid clip.
As foreign policy specialist Robert Kaplan has stated, “In times of crisis, history speeds up.”
The United States educational system has essentially entered into a no-analog future, where past baselines, metrics, and standards have not caught up to the exponentially increasing digital revolution. While national and state standards still hold relevance, as governmental laws and standards must be met to remain accredited, acquire funding, and to ensure legal compliance, sound organizational innovation must be made for AI resilience so as to ensure that academic rigor and integrity are maintained.
Resilient systems are being adopted by financial, corporate, and military firms to reduce risk and liability in an unpredictable world. Therefore, a university’s organizational dynamics and operations must be designed with this policy reality in mind, and university leaders must be willing to go it alone and presage risks, considering not every possibility but rather what is probable, and designing university systems to be fluid, flexible, and adaptive.
The Internet of Things, or the ability for various technology platforms, devices, and applications to communicate with one another in a synergistic fashion, has revolutionized higher education. However, as federal and state guardrails have not been established, it is the task of higher education administrators to craft order and stability within their institutions so as to generate the best possible outcomes for their staff, professors, and students.
During the turn of the century and the beginning of the internet era, tech firms provided services for universities. As technological advancements increased and became ever more connected, these firms became partners with universities, often working hand in hand with their academic counterparts.
Now, as the world approaches AI singularity, these same firms are beginning to craft the higher educational system itself and are offering services such as free educational courses and personalized educational platforms in the name of access and opportunity.
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In many ways, this is a form of elite corporate capture, where the universities themselves are controlled directly or indirectly, or are even replaced by cutting-edge personalized AI-driven systems that guide students based on these educational platforms.
While the provision of opportunities to those who are unable to attend a traditional brick-and-mortar college is an important issue, educators, not technologists, should provide such opportunities. Indeed, one must consider the interest-based motives of technological firms— increasing profits and dividends for their shareholders—as opposed to the mission of higher education professionals, which is to broaden a narrow mind and to teach students to think for themselves.
People-to-people relationships at universities are fundamental to developing a young mind. They provide friendships and mentorships that are the beating heart of classical liberal arts education.
Educational professionals must provide a clear sense of the historical past and a positive outlook for the future to craft a bright and optimistic future for young students. Students must be taught that the future is theirs and that they have a choice to shape it.
Universities provide a lived experience that students will remember throughout their lifetime, as well as professional networks and guidance that cannot be offered by ‘living silicon’ or an augmented chatbot experience. This writer believes that only well-educated, well-read, and free-thinking tenured professors can provide the necessary wisdom, knowledge, and guidance to open a closed mind. Professors are irreplaceable, and so too is a university.
From the top down to the bottom up, traditional academia can adapt to AI if proactive steps are taken and the policy initiative is seized. University leaders possess institutional wisdom that far supersedes any tech magnate’s understanding of education, and it is these leaders who hold the future of American higher education in their hands. They must take risks and rely on their intuition and vision to guide our nation’s best and brightest into safe harbor.
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