{"id":350112,"date":"2025-11-02T10:31:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T10:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/350112\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T10:31:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T10:31:16","slug":"the-new-york-college-trying-to-ai-proof-its-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/350112\/","title":{"rendered":"The New York college trying to \u2018AI-proof\u2019 its students"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rapid development of artificial intelligence\u2014both in capabilities and adoption\u2014has been mirrored by a growing concern that this latest era of automation will take a scythe to the American workforce.<\/p>\n

The outlook appears to be bleakest among the labor market\u2019s new or aspiring entrants. Some 70 percent of Generation Z say artificial intelligence has made them doubt their future job security, according to a survey by Glassdoor, and 65 percent of respondents in a separate poll said even a college degree can no longer protect them in the event of an AI<\/a>-driven mass replacement.<\/p>\n

The evidently pro-AI administration remains unflustered, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent<\/a> stating that he is \u201cnot at all<\/a>\u201d worried about AI\u2019s implications for U.S. employment<\/a>, while urging fearful Americans to embrace and adapt rather than resist the new technological epoch.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet educated on AI because having the AI skills and the ability to use them is what\u2019s going to get you hired,\u201d Bessent told CNBC in mid-October.<\/p>\n

\"\"Building ‘AI-Resilience’ in the New York Mountains<\/p>\n

But another approach is being adopted at a small yet growing college in\u00a0New York<\/a>\u2019s Adirondack Mountains, committed to \u201cAI-proofing\u201d its students with a curriculum focused on \u201chands-on\u201d professions even advanced LLMs will struggle to supplant.<\/p>\n

Paul Smith\u2019s College has seen a 30 percent uptick in new enrollees this fall, which Kathy Bonavist, executive vice president of Advancement & Enrollment, attributes in part to its preparation of students for such \u201cAI-resilient\u201d careers as forestry and environmental science, wildlife science, as well as hospitality and applied business, which require real-world problem solving and a human touch.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur education is based on calloused hands and sharp minds,\u201d Bonavist tells Newsweek. \u201cAnd so we prepare graduates for sort of the messy, unpredictable places where human judgment still really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owing in part to its geography\u2014surrounded by six million acres of wilderness\u2014Paul Smith\u2019s has always tailored its curriculum toward land-based occupations and the more rural trades rather than those mandated by an ever-more technological economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul Smith’s been around since 1946, and one might argue that we’ve always been relatively AI-proof,\u201d Bonavist tells Newsweek. \u201cNow, we’re just doubling down on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gavin Tufo, a sophomore majoring in Arboriculture and Landscape Management, said, \u201cMy degree has taught me an indescribable amount of knowledge, along with extreme amounts of hands-on experience that was almost foreign to me before I started here. <\/p>\n

\u201cPlus, who doesn\u2019t want to climb a tree in college?\u201d<\/p>\n

Another student, Liam Carroll, who majors in Arboriculture and Landscape Management alongside Ecological Forest Management, said the threats posed by AI did not factor into his decision to choose Paul Smith\u2019s as his place of study\u2014inspired instead by his \u201clove of the outdoors.\u201d<\/p>\n

But witnessing \u201chow rapidly it is progressing and becoming such a big part of people\u2019s lives,\u201d Carroll tells Newsweek he now \u00a0feels \u201crelieved that the jobs<\/a> that I could get with my degree are going to be one of the last things that AI could replace if at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what AI can do in the future, the world will always need people who are educated in their field that can actually go out into the world and collect research and fall timber etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resilience Not Resistance<\/p>\n

As Bonavist explains, Paul Smith\u2019s sees itself as \u201cAI-resilient\u201d rather than \u201cAI-resistant.\u201d The college recognizes that the technology has and will continue to reshape even the more outdoor-focused jobs, and is exploring how AI might “fit in\u201d to the careers students are preparing for while adjusting curricula accordingly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re not putting our head in the sand to say that there are \u00a0tremendous\u00a0opportunities in AI,\u201d she says, \u201cbut we’re doubling down on the fact that we’ve always had this sort of technical, human-touch aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir resilience is forged in the field, in the kitchen, in the classroom, in the forest. And they don’t just learn skills. They actually show up,\u201d says Bonavist. \u201cThey show up at five a.m. to start in the kitchen. They show up in the forest to manage the land and run the large equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany schools you might learn about teaching how to run a giant loader in the forest, but our students actually get in them and run them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAI has its place in the forestry industry, whether it’s in a machine or on a computer. What AI doesn\u2019t have is the human eye and mind,\u201d Tufo tells Newsweek. \u201cNo single tree is the same; no conditions or ground environment are exactly the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are several factors that we have been taught and trained to assess and understand that AI cannot simply comprehend.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Paul Smith\u2019s appears to be riding a wider trend, as AI threatens to replace an increasing number of entry-level white-collar jobs. According to a recent survey by Jobber, 77 percent of Gen Z consider it important to choose a career that\u2019s “difficult to automate.” A majority pointed to trades like carpentry and plumbing as largely future-proof, while far fewer see safety in fields like software development, data analytics, and accounting.<\/p>\n

The increasing popularity of Paul Smith\u2019s and its AI-proof curriculum highlights the question now top of mind for so many Americans: How can humans make themselves indispensable in a machine-driven world?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rapid development of artificial intelligence\u2014both in capabilities and adoption\u2014has been mirrored by a growing concern that this…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":350113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[691,5229,738,407,263,420,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,18244,242,766,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-350112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-employment","13":"tag-jobs","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-scott-bessent","21":"tag-tech","22":"tag-unemployment","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115479650900957652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350112","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=350112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}