Thinking About AI

Thinking About AI

Steve Hinson

Professor of Economics and MBA Program Director at Webster University

January 8, 2024

The rapid deployment of AI promises to disrupt many existing business models, including higher education.  Historically, colleges and universities have “created value” by synthesizing knowledge, packaging and delivering it in largely standardized chunks, and then validating the (attempted) transmission of this commodified knowledge to the student consumer.   An often-frustrating experience for faculty and student alike.

Within the next five to (at most) ten years, large language models could largely replace the traditional college experience with something more akin to a self-directed major delivered by an increasingly effective (virtual), and often more personable, personal tutor.

In my own classroom, I’ve experimented with providing students prompts directing an LLM to act as a personal tutor on a topic-by-topic basis.  So far, the combination of my limited proficiency with prompt engineering and some lingering limitations of the LLM have yielded only moderately successful outcomes.  But in a very short time I expect this to change as prompting becomes AI facilitated and the models more reliable.

The college professor will then no longer be the (supposed) smartest “person” in the room, by a long shot.  But we in higher education may still add value, not as creator and store house of knowledge, and certainly not by delivering mind-numbing lectures, but instead by acting as personal curator and guide, perhaps more akin to a personal shopper.

Of course, there’s no substitution for a rich highly interactive class experience.  But the ability of AI to deliver a more personalized program, to do so in a way that is most conducive to each student’s unique learning style, and to do both at a substantially reduced cost will be compelling.