The University as We Know It Is Finished

This is such a grand title, but the conclusions are surprisingly tame.

- The take-home projects and papers are useless for grading purposes because of AI cheating. Time for more oral exams.

Yep, the only real change from AI. This used to be $50/page from diploma mill and this was expensive enough to dissuade most people. Now it's almost free, and cheating is rampant.

I think author's hope for oral exams is too optimistic, that is too expensive. Good old written exams, either in blue books or on special locked-down devices, proctored to prevent cheating, will be a way to go.

- It makes no sense for professors to stand in front of large classes and deliver lectures. They should do small, interactive seminars.

I don't see what this has to do with AI? Ever since VCR was invented, professors doing non-interactive lectures could be replaced with recordings. Either there is a "human element" in those, in which case it's still there, AI or not; or it's just pure information transfer, in which case AI is just an inferior version of recorded lecture with worse presentation style and hallucinations.

- Professors should teach about AI, include how to prompt efficiently and how to critically scrutinize the output

100% agree, as with any important technology. But this is just a small curriculum change, just one more topic to cover in the lecture, and maybe a class.

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Overall, I believe that modern university is pretty bad and should be changed, but I hardly think that AI made this problem significantly worse, and this essay really did not convince me of that.

	▲	evan_a_a 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>>Professors should teach about AI, include how to prompt efficiently and how to critically scrutinize the output >100% agree, as with any important technology. But this is just a small curriculum change, just one more topic to cover in the lecture, and maybe a class. Critically scrutinizing LLM output is just critical thinking skills, something universities should already teach.
	▲	dzhiurgis 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> I think author's hope for oral exams is too optimistic, that is too expensive. Ironically AI is perfect for quizzing you.

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danny_codes 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We let the university model degrade, and now this author is pontificating about how the university model isn't working.

Yes.

Because we let it degrade.

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euroderf 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I like the emphasis on the development of the individual as a mentally co-ordinated cognitive whole.

Carbon-based lifeforms gotta give the silicon-based a run for their money.

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npl 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I like the critique of the problem - unclear how many model releases the proposed solution helps (or should help, looks at student loan balance) the economic structure of a university survive.