Incredibly disappointing presentation at my uni about A.I. in Higher Ed. It wasn't university-official, but it was consonant with the noises we've heard from the Big Fancy Admin Building. The presentation was by a #computerScience prof, and it was clear where his perspective was going to be from the first 10 seconds, when he said he had created a startup to use AI to help businesses automate their processes.
The first substantive slide was kind of a leaderboard, showing what percentage of the companies in the US (healthcare, banking, etc.) had adopted AI, which he talked about like a horse race, with some industries being "ahead" and others "behind." #HigherEd was very much "behind" in AI adoption. It was pretty much downhill from there.
He had suggestions for improving AI adoption in our university, suggestions for how faculty can incorporate AI into our coursework, etc. Building AI programs (our uni is doing this in lockstep with every other school) is not enough, apparently. He not-so-sadly noted that certain #teaching goals were just no longer realistic, like "understanding concepts". Instead, we might focus on outcomes. He had a slide with big words: "What? How?", meaning teaching students pragmatic getting-it-done skills and focusing much less on how well they understand the processes that led there.
This probably makes sense for someone from computer science. It is pretty horrifying for someone from the #SocialSciences and I assume even worse for someone from the #humanities or teaching any kind of #art.
Nov 19, 2–5 PM PT
Karen Caldwell 2025 
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