The skills that students will need in an age of automation are precisely those that are eroded by inserting AI into the educational process.
www.theatlantic.com
From my perspective as a Higher Education worker, we are in a difficult position.
We are expected to train students for the future. AI may be a big part of the future so we need to train them for it, don't we? A lot of people have bought into the hype, so we get hammered from all sorts of quarters if we're not seen to embrace what they think is the future. I have ventured negative opinions, and I do not think a lot of higher ranked people have appreciated it. They want the positives about how it's going to revolutionise their product.
We've never been trained in AI. My workload is full already. I can (and do) learn stuff where I can, but on AI they want me and those like me to teach expertise
we haven't learnt. Where's my CPD (there isn't any)? Can I take some weeks off to properly look at it (no)? Aside from my bitty experimentation I've set some staff to work on it and then tell everyone else when they find out, what else can I do? Look, it's going to take time. There's going to be plenty of experimentation, and things will go wrong. But I am hopeful eventually - to at least some extent - higher education will get there.
Although a lot of universities are under commercial pressures. There are already reports of AI-heavy courses, like, lots of material that appears to be AI generated. Potentially of course expertise is shrunk - like instead of 5 subject experts making material, you have 1 subject expert making / reviewing AI material. There are likely to be sacrifices in quality. Or that AI is simply going to make people more stupid. Lots of people who should know better ARE just skipping to the AI summary even though it may be wrong.