The emergence and growth of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to two broad schools of thought – the first school of thought believes that AI will replace all jobs, and the second school of thought believes that AI will enrich the lives of people.

The shrinkage in the workforce due to the increased use of generative AI in organisations (Cooban, 2023) supports the first school of thought and the second school of thought is supported by the belief that AI is helping humanity (Sukhadeve, 2021) and that AI offers several advantages which can be leveraged by all (Maheshwari, 2023).

AI has the potential to impact higher education more than any other industry (Bates et al., 2020), and it is common to see academics being concerned about the use of AI applications by students to submit assignments, students accessing Chat GPT during class to validate what is being taught and so on.

A study on AI in Higher Education showed that there is a significant opportunity for increased use of AI in higher education (Crompton & Burke, 2023). AI is important not only for universities but also for students (Bearman et al., 2023) and there is an opportunity for increased use of AI in higher education.

Six opportunities for enabling Higher Education to become more AI-friendly

The first opportunity is the need for a change in mindset to view AI as an enabler and not as a disabler in higher education. Change in mindset will enable both teachers and students to become open to the integration of AI in classrooms.

The second opportunity is to articulate clear guidelines and policies on how AI can be integrated into the classroom, ensuring ethical requirements and awareness at all levels of the institution. Most of the time, the increased use of AI is hampered by limited information on the dos and don’ts and a lack of clarity on the roles and responsibilities of students and teachers.

The third opportunity is for using AI to offer personalized learning to students, and this can be a game changer as the learning pace and styles of students vary (Chassignol et al., 2018). This can be applicable at the undergraduate and graduate levels and will enable the nurturing of the diverse needs of the students in an inclusive way. Personalised learning can increase the success rate of students, and in addition, gamification and AI robots can be leveraged to support the students (Chassignol et al., 2018).

The fourth opportunity is to use AI to track the performance of students and assess them (Chassignol et al., 2018). The tracking of student performance can help to understand learning gaps and identify student failure early (Chassignol et al., 2018).

The fifth opportunity is to use AI to provide specific and focused feedback to the students (Chassignol et al., 2018), and this will enable consistency, provide personalized feedback to students on their performance, and reduce the workload of the teachers.

The sixth opportunity is to explore the integration of generative AI like Chat GPT into classrooms. While the use of generative AI like Chat GPT presents several risks in higher education, it also presents several opportunities like plagiarism and similarity detection, admissions and enrolment, enhanced learning experiences, and research (Dempere et al., 2023) with the launch of ChatGPT Edu (Neuroscience News, 2024).

AI’s role in shaping the future of universities

This article suggests that AI is here to stay and with more advancements, there is a higher possibility for AI to become applicable in many aspects of higher education. Therefore, it is important to look at AI as an enabler instead of a disabler, and this means that the relevant opportunities should be evaluated within a university’s context and explored accordingly based on the priorities, available budgets, and facilities of the University.

The classroom in an educational institution is a creative space that should nurture the right learning environment, value diversity, facilitate inclusion, enable both teachers and students to succeed, and lead to a positive experience. This can be accomplished by leveraging AI in the right manner and enabling universities to be forerunners in the use of technology for educational excellence.

References

Cooban, A. (2024, April 5). AI will shrink workforces within five years, say company execs. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/05/business/ai-job-losses/index.html

Sukhadeve, A. (2021, February 9). Artificial Intelligence For Good: How AI Is Helping Humanity. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/02/09/artificial-intelligence-for-good-how-ai-is-helping-humanity/?sh=9359c243366b

Maheshwari, R (2023, Aug 24). Advantages Of Artificial Intelligence (AI) In 2024. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/in/business/software/advantages-of-ai/

Bates, T., Cobo, C., Mariño, O., & Wheeler, S. (2020). Can artificial intelligence transform higher education?. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 17, 1-12.

Crompton, H., & Burke, D. (2023). Artificial intelligence in higher education: the state of the field. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 20(1), 22.

Bearman, M., Ryan, J., & Ajjawi, R. (2023). Discourses of artificial intelligence in higher education: A critical literature review. Higher Education, 86(2), 369-385.

Chassignol, M., Khoroshavin, A., Klimova, A., & Bilyatdinova, A. (2018). Artificial Intelligence trends in education: a narrative overview. Procedia Computer Science, 136, 16-24.

Dempere, J., Modugu, K., Hesham, A., & Ramasamy, L. K. (2023, September). The impact of ChatGPT on higher education. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 8, p. 1206936). Frontiers Media SA.

Neuroscience News. (2024, May 30). OpenAI Introduces ChatGPT Edu, Revolutionizing Higher Education. https://neurosciencenews.com/openai-chatgpt-edu-ai-26206

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