Why One AI Administrator Is Skeptical of AI

"Three years after generative artificial intelligence technology went mainstream, predictions about how AI will transform the workforce and learning haven't slowed down. Last year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted AI could wipe out half of entry-level white collar jobs within just five years. More recently, Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft's AI CEO, forecast an even gloomier outlook: Most white-collar tasks "will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.""

"At the same time, universities across the country are scrambling to prepare their students for a workforce that's increasingly reliant on AI. Many, including Ohio State University, the California State University system and Columbia University, are trying to accomplish that in part by partnering with mammoth tech companies, such as Google and OpenAI, that claim their products will also enhance learning and instruction."

"But Matthew Connelly, a professor of history and a vice dean for AI initiatives at Columbia University, is skeptical of the higher education sector's rush to partner with tech companies without much proof that their AI tools improve learning outcomes. Instead, he believes such partnerships are offering tech companies training grounds to create the very AI systems that could replace human workers-and usurp the knowledge-creation business higher education has long dominated."

""Young people are quickly becoming so dependent on AI that they are losing the ability to think for themselves," Connelly wrote last week in a guest essay for The New York Times titled "AI Companies Are Eating Higher Education." "And rather than rallying resistance, academic administrators are aiding and abetting a hostile takeover of higher education.""

Predictions claim generative AI could automate many white-collar jobs within months to years, prompting urgent workforce-and-education planning. Universities are forming partnerships with major tech firms to integrate AI into instruction and prepare students for AI-driven workplaces. A Columbia University vice dean for AI initiatives expresses skepticism that these partnerships demonstrably improve learning outcomes and cautions they may instead provide training data and development environments for AI systems that could displace human labor and appropriate higher education's role in knowledge creation. The vice dean warns that rising student dependence on AI may diminish independent critical thinking while administrators inadvertently enable corporate control of academia.

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