http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2024/01/ai-university.html
Donald Clark proposes a vision for an AI-first university, tackling the pressing need for high-quality, low-cost online education in the UK. Here’s a distilled list of 25 transformative ideas, drawing inspiration from other successful educational models:
- Non-traditional students in terms of age and background
- Quick and easy application process
- Personalised learning using AI
- Multimodal from the start
- Full range of summarisation, create self-assessment, dialogue tools
- Focus on generative learning using AI
- Every teacher has a chatbot available 24/7
- Teaching personalised
- Teaching at any level
- Teaching in many languages aided by AI
- Online assessment when ready
- Every student has a ‘Digital Twin’
- 2D and 3D environments for social interaction and learning
- Automated feedback and assessment
- Focus on critical skills shortages (nursing, teaching etc)
- AI aided research processes
- Intake at any time
- Learning journeys optimised
- Complete at your own pace
- Make sure AI is part of curriculum
- Data-driven approach with privacy ensured
- Low admin, high 24/7 teaching and learning environment
- Use part of apprenticeship levy
- Get Big Tech to agree on proxy tax to fund
- Based in the North“
I couldn’t agree more. For me, AI has the potential to massively scale personal learning, and for that reason alone, I think it’s worth pushing forward, regardless of some of the ethics concerns. I’ve written about the idea of an AI-first university, which sees an adaptation (restructuring might be a better word) towards AI for everything. I got a bit of push-back from some colleagues, along the lines of “AI is relevant, but not for everything.“
I disagree. I think that AI is going to touch everything we care about in universities. I think we’re going to soon start seeing the emergence of private institutions offering university-level education, at a fraction of the cost, entirely online.
Will it be ideal? No. But it will be accessible, affordable, and convenient (all things that existing higher education programmes are not), which means it will scale in a way that’s impossible for higher education to do in it’s existing form.
The less we embrace AI across all areas in the higher education sector, the more risk there is that we’re going to fall behind.