Opinion
A new idea has popped up, and it worries me.
The argument is that now that AI can handle information, universities should pivot to emphasise teaching human qualities, the things AI lacks.
Apparently, we should prioritise instilling qualities like adaptability, curiosity, creativity, resilience, learning to learn, courage, and empathy. And some modern commentators go further, advocating for neuro-innovation, quantum literacy, space business, aesthetic leadership, self-leadership, insight curation, mental wealth, and even, with remarkable irony, unlearning. After all, ‘this is what employers want’.
Of course, we all want our graduates to develop attributes like wisdom and critical thinking, but I maintain that we can help our students best by continuing to focus on what universities are uniquely good at – teaching deep disciplinary knowledge. Students will gradually develop the right qualities indirectly by continuing to tackle serious learning.
It doesn’t matter that AI can now handle information. We should not shift the balance.
Charles Darwin did a conventional degree, then he travelled on the Beagle, then he wrote books of hundreds of pages, including two volumes comprising more than 1,000 pages just on barnacles. Eventually the information and knowledge piled up and the idea of evolution by natural selection occurred to him. He developed wisdom through deep learning.
If you want to teach resilience, don’t give lectures on resilience; start a jogging class and gradually step students through preparations for a marathon. We often learn by doing and by learning details we develop knowledge, wisdom, and critical thinking.
If we shift our emphasis to human values, I don’t believe we will be instilling the values we want. Shifting the emphasis will simply open the door to charlatans. Because anyone can style themselves as a teacher of values.
This point is nicely parodied in David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s excellent comedy series Peepshow. In Series 8, Business Secrets of the Pharaohs, Jez (played by Rob) enrols in a course in ‘life-coaching’ offered by a provider with the satirical name Private Invoicing Life-Coaching. He never graduates but Mark (played by David) forges a certificate for him. A dialogue ensues “I’ve got medical training, I've got a certificate” says Jez. “I gave you the certificate. It's utterly meaningless,” says Mark. Jez counters “In a way, aren't all so-called qualifications meaningless?” to which Mark simply and correctly, answers “No”.
But if we begin straying down the road of ‘life-coaching’ with courses in adaptability, courage, and resilience, our degrees will be seen as meaningless, by society, by our staff, and also by our students.
And assessment will become an even greater challenge than it is now. Debates about assessment are endless, but fortunately one can actually measure things like knowledge gain, objectively. And we should. But measuring general attributes is so subjective that bias creeps in quickly. This sets up a culture of suspicion. Good students are driven away from courses that rely on weak assessments, open to subjectivity and bias.
Shifting the emphasis away from knowledge, not only misunderstands the roles and responsibilities of universities, it is also disrespectful to other important players across society. Universities are replete with experts who can teach their disciplines and students learn the disciplines and acquire practical craftsmanship in those disciplines, and gradually indirectly develop attributes like wisdom and critical thinking. But, and here’s the thing, universities do not have a monopoly on human attributes. Many of the attributes being discussed, the human qualities, are also absorbed on the job or elsewhere out in the world.
Continuing to concentrate on teaching real knowledge remains the best way for universities to contribute to engendering the human qualities that we all desire.
The students who learn the most will be those who will end up being most adept and most confident in using AI most effectively to do things like analyse a dataset, design an experiment, diagnose a disease, or even captain a plane.
But those who have been primarily taught all-important human graduate attributes, won’t be able to do anything but fake it.
Professor Merlin Crossley is DVC (Academic Quality) at UNSW