Campus Leaders Still Wary of AI

Inside Higher Ed’s 2023 survey of chief technology and information officers found them to be very cautious about embracing artificial intelligence. Only 16 percent said investing in artificial intelligence technology was a “high priority” or “essential,” while 69 percent said AI was low-to-medium priority. But roughly one-third of CIOs said they may try out AI, machine learning, and adaptive learning. Some educators believe the technology is too new to warrant substantial investment. Stephen Harmon, executive director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said, “We don’t know where these technologies will end up, so as a CIO, I would be reluctant to invest heavily at a production level.” Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University, in a September lecture at Iowa State University, said there is a fear that AI might destroy jobs. Jobs will be created and others will be lost, he said, but overall net jobs will not fluctuate: “There’s always more work to be done. We’re very far from scarcity, but there’ll be this rather major reallocation of rewards to people who work with this stuff well.”