{"id":116167,"date":"2025-08-03T17:48:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116167\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T17:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:48:15","slug":"artificial-intelligence-and-the-end-of-college-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116167\/","title":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence and the end of college education"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Google<\/a>Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks about Google\u2019s developments in artificial intelligence at an event in Mountain View, CA, on May 20, 2025. (Photo by Jeff Chiu\/Associated Press)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s August, the school year is about to begin, and dread is in the air.<\/p>\n

The reason isn\u2019t that the summer idyll is about to end, but AI (Artificial Intelligence) and LLMs (Large Language Models).<\/p>\n

\"Opinion<\/a><\/p>\n

Since ChatGPT appeared in 2022, AI is everywhere reshaping everything. \u00a0From manufacturing to healthcare to engineering, no part of life remains untouched. Many jobs will disappear<\/a>, we\u2019re told, and even more will be transformed.<\/p>\n

Including education.<\/p>\n

Schools, both K-12<\/a> and higher ed, have rushed to embrace AI. Ohio State University, for example, announced that all incoming students will be trained in AI because, according to OSU\u2019s president, \u201cIn the not-so-distant future<\/a>, every job, in every industry, is going to be [affected] in some way by AI.\u201d\u00a0 The University of Florida proudly announces that they integrate AI \u201cacross all disciplines<\/a>, from healthcare to agriculture and aerospace to the arts.\u201d Same for Arizona State University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bringing AI into the classroom leads to \u201cbetter questions<\/a>\u201d and \u201cdeeper thinking.\u201d Using AI to find and summarize articles means you don\u2019t have to do this yourself, resulting in \u201cliberated time<\/a>\u201d which can be put to better use.<\/p>\n

AI, its boosters say, will do much more than shape how we teach and learn.\u00a0 A tech entrepreneur opined in Time Magazine: \u201cAI promises a future<\/a> of unparalleled abundance,\u201d enhanced creativity, and social justice though \u201censuring fair decision-making, reducing biases, and promoting transparency in governance\u201d in ways beyond human capability. Mark Zuckerberg told Meta\u2019s investors that AI \u201cwill improve \u2018nearly every aspect<\/a> of what we do,\u2019\u201d and would usher in \u201ca new era of individual empowerment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve heard this kind of utopian rhetoric before.<\/p>\n

The Internet was supposed to end dictatorships. In 1989, speaking in the shade of the crackdown at Tiananmen Square, Ronald Reagan predicted that the \u201cGoliath of totalitarianism<\/a> will be brought down by the David of the microchip.\u201d MOOCs [Massive Open Online Courses] were supposed to transform education<\/a>. In 2020, the coronavirus epidemic led to school closures, and tech\u2019s boosters celebrated. Andrew Cuomo, then Governor of New York, with Bill Gates by his side, wondered why we need brick-and-mortar buildings when we have tech<\/a> to replace teachers. Social media was supposed to lead to a happier, more connected world.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that tech hasn\u2019t changed our world. Everything, it seems, happens online, and the advantages are enormous. But there are also good reasons for skepticism.<\/p>\n

First, the utopian hopes did not come to pass. China, for example, uses the web for political repression<\/a>, and they are not alone. Social media may bring people together, but\u00a0 according to the U.S. Surgeon General, it also poses \u201ca profound risk of harm<\/a> to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.\u201d\u00a0Consequently, New York<\/a>, Oregon<\/a>, Georgia<\/a>, and Missouri<\/a> have banned cell phones from their K-12 schools. Closing schools and moving education online during Covid has led to profound and lasting learning loss<\/a>. X (n\u00e9e Twitter) isn\u2019t a digital town square<\/a>, but a cesspool of hate speech, antisemitism, and misogyny<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Next, the companies promoting AI usually have a vested interest. For example, the Deloitte Center for Government Insights published an article<\/a> last year urging everyone in higher ed to \u201cincorporate and embrace gen AI and traditional AI tools in ways that can enhance efficiency and improve outcomes across the academic enterprise.\u201d A quick Google search reveals that Deloitte has invested $2 billion<\/a> in AI. So they are not urging colleges and universities to adopt AI out of the goodness of their hearts; they want to see a return on their investment.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic are investing millions<\/a> to train K-12 teachers to use AI in their classrooms. The underlying hope is that once kids are introduced to their brand, they will be customers for life.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying capitalism is bad. It isn\u2019t. Capitalism is what drives innovation. But as the phrase goes, \u201ccaveat emptor,\u201d or, \u201clet the buyer beware,\u201d and when it comes to AI and education, there\u2019s a lot to beware. Because AI can make you stupid.<\/p>\n

Studies from both MIT<\/a> and Microsoft-Carnegie Mellon University<\/a> (neither bastions of anti-tech Luddism), show that using AI degrades your cognitive skills. For the MIT study, researchers had the subjects write an essay, some using ChatGPT, others not, and they found that the ChatGPT users registered the lowest level of brain activity: \u201cWhile LLMs offer immediate convenience,\u201d the study concluded, \u201cour findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Microsoft-CMU study showed that the more users employed ChatGPT, the less they examined arguments and came up with their own conclusions:<\/p>\n

Specifically, higher confidence in GenAI<\/a> is associated with less critical thinking, while higher self-confidence is associated with more critical thinking. Qualitatively, GenAI shifts the nature of critical thinking toward information verification, response integration, and task stewardship.<\/p>\n

None of this should be surprising. The brain, to state the obvious, is a muscle, and if you don\u2019t exercise a muscle, it atrophies. Which is why AI drives a stake through education\u2019s heart. College is not just about learning content, it\u2019s also about learning how to think about content. AI undermines both by doing your work for you.<\/p>\n

If you ask ChatGPT to create an outline for an essay, then you are not learning how to evaluate, synthesize, and organize evidence for yourself. If you use AI to summarize articles, then you are not reading them for yourself.\u00a0 And if you use AI to write your assignments, then you are defeating the purpose of the assignment. Nor are the problems restricted to the humanities. If you use AI to solve your algorithm problems, you aren\u2019t learning how to program.<\/p>\n

These are not hypotheticals. By all accounts, resorting to AI is rampant in higher ed<\/a>. As James D. Walsh puts it in his infamous New York Magazine article, \u201cEveryone is cheating their way through college<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

But instead of skepticism, Mildred Garcia, the chancellor of the California State University System, proudly announced a $17 million initiative with ChatGPT to \u201cBecome Nation\u2019s First<\/a> and Largest AI-Empowered University System.\u201d That\u2019s $17 million at a time of major budget cuts and ballooning deficits for a program widely available for free.<\/p>\n

When I asked the chancellor\u2019s office about the MIT and Microsoft studies, Leslie Kennedy, assistant vice chancellor of academic technology,<\/a> responded, \u201cThis is an opportunity for CSU to lead in the exploration of generative AI and its impact on higher education and beyond,\u201d which doesn\u2019t exactly answer the question.<\/p>\n

As for the prevalence of cheating using AI, Kennedy referred to a Substack article<\/a> proposing that students begin with original drafts, then use AI \u201cto refine their prose and expand creative and intellectual possibilities.\u201d But the author also admits that \u201cAI can actually hurt your ability to think creatively by anchoring you to its suggestions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which brings me back to the dread surrounding the start of classes. Not only are students relying on a program allowing them to slide through their classes without doing the required reading, but forbidding AI\u2019s use won\u2019t work for two reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, AI detection software often gives false negatives and false positives. Walsh fed an AI-generated essay into one such program and it came back as \u201c11.74%\u201d AI-generated. On the other hand, a passage from Genesis \u201ccame back as 93.33 percent AI-generated.\u201d \u00a0There are even programs that will \u201chumanize<\/a>\u201d AI\u2019s tell-tale airless prose.<\/p>\n

More importantly, the CSU administration enthusiastically supports AI, putting teachers in the difficult position of banning something the administration fully backs.<\/p>\n

To be honest, nobody knows what to do, but it feels like the end of education.<\/p>\n

Peter C. Herman<\/a>\u00a0is a professor of English literature at San Diego State University. He has published books on Shakespeare, Milton and the literature of terrorism, and essays in Salon, Newsweek, Inside Higher Ed, and Times of San Diego. His latest book is \u201cEarly Modern Others: Resisting Bias in Renaissance Literature<\/a>\u201d\u00a0(Routledge).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks about Google\u2019s developments in artificial intelligence at an event in Mountain View, CA,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":116168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,2871,17714,420,14104,3069,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-116167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-college","11":"tag-creativity","12":"tag-jobs","13":"tag-large-language-models","14":"tag-teaching","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114966095622253277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}