Topic: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Higher Education
There are very serious people today imagining and considering the implications of a “world without work,” with algorithms performing cognitive tasks once thought only humans could perform. It is commonplace in our contemporary society to say that the purpose of higher education is to prepare young people for work. But if predictions of a world without work come to pass, then the linkage of higher education and job preparation would be torn apart. What will be “the primary purpose of higher education” when artificial intelligence has made human employment redundant?
Columbus Futurist David Staley presented three scenarios for the future of higher education under such conditions, and as a group we will imagine a scenario where the purpose of a university education is teaching students and AI to “think together.”
Here is an article David wrote for a special section of the Columbus Dispatch: Here Come the Machines, Again
Some articles to consider:
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/05/31/is-ai-the-end-of-jobs-or-a-new-beginning/?utm_term=.74c6c6f5cdbe
- https://www.wired.com/2017/05/revamped-alphago-wins-first-game-chinese-go-grandmaster/
- http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/09/robot-economy-artificial-intelligence-jobs-happy-ending-526467.html
Columbus Futurists 