AI Is Upending Higher Education

AI is transforming higher education in ways that most institutions are not prepared for. And I say this as someone who works inside one.

The challenges are real and immediate. How do you assess student work when AI can produce essays that are often indistinguishable from what a strong student would write? How do you teach critical thinking when students have access to systems that can synthesize information faster than any human? How do you maintain the value of a degree when the skills it certifies are being automated?

In this episode of Machines Like Us, I talked to Niall Ferguson and Connor Grennan about what AI means for the future of universities. Ferguson brings the historian's perspective — he's seen institutions survive and fail to adapt to technological disruption before. Grennan brings the practitioner's perspective — he's been working on the front lines of AI adoption in higher education at NYU.

What emerged is a conversation about whether universities can evolve fast enough to remain relevant, and what we lose if they don't.