Key points:
- AI brings cautions we’ve never had to confront before
- Schools are building AI rules before they know the destination
- A strategic roadmap for AI in higher education
- For more on AI’s future, visit eCN’s AI in Education hub
Working in higher education, I’ve been asked the same question several times—and with increasing frequency in the last year: Is AI going to replace the need for education? Scientific investigation and philosophical analysis give us answers that cut to the heart of the question. And the answer is a strong “no.” AI is not going to replace the need for college. In fact, it demands education.
There are three reasons AI demands that we go to college. We need to study its effects and see it as a viable human tool. We must confront our need to discern and critique it. We need to be able to use it in a data-now, rapid world of information sharing. And we need to realize it is a new professional industry that, at its foundation, is an extension of human thought and inquiry.
1. Discern and critique it.
Universities are dedicated to two primary goals: research on what is real, true, or accurate, and our reactions, use, and human response to it—ultimately seeking to improve the human experience.
AI can be used to cheat, write entire essays, and give information that—historically—we had to labor for days to find. But with its ability to both use information and reason with that information, AI has given us a new opportunity for cultural analysis. The human experience is changing because of AI. The concerns beg us to engage in critique of a world that has been overwhelmed by AI. And critique is the work of philosophical, ethical, and liberal arts training.
For those who ask questions about truth, morality, and wisdom, AI is a new playing field. The humanities, philosophy, and ethics are now exploring how our excessive practicality in using AI is a moral and work ethic issue. As scholars and students, we will spend decades examining the effects of AI. The liberal arts, humanities, social sciences, and psychological impacts of AI are just getting started. We have new and meaningful questions that higher education is uniquely positioned to explore when it comes to understanding AI.
2. Use it in a rapid, data-now world.
Considering a positive effect of AI, it has changed the pacing of decision-making. Business executives can get reasonable and convincing market projections within minutes rather than through approaches that previously took weeks. This drives rapid decisions on marketing, customer bases, and emerging opportunities.
The business world is now a sprint race because AI can generate forecasts and summarize information at lightning speed. This taps into one of the largest concerns—that AI will replace certain positions. But consider the scope of what AI is doing. It is being used, not doing the using. It is subject to human intentions, not driving future decisions.
Marketing consultants aren’t gone. They are masters at using Claude to identify opportunities for their clients and supervisors. YouTube influencers aren’t replaced by AI presenters, but they can generate a script to use in their storytelling at a rapid pace.
So, education—as the foundation for people to work in specific industries—is the setting for preparing for those footraces. AI is explored not only as morally questionable, but as a practical tool for getting ahead, competing within, and succeeding within diverse professional fields. Those who do not use AI will have information arrive at their desks too slowly. They won’t be able to keep up.
3. Tap into it as an industry that is connected to human effort.
We cannot forget what AI uses: information that has always been generated by humans. It draws upon online databases made of centuries of human writing. Importantly, all of the information used by AI generators is based on the foundation of what humans have done.
Further, AI does not operate outside of human planning. Its rules are dictated by humans who write algorithms and give it limits. We drive AI. We create its rules. Human ingenuity allows it to progress. We give it the information it can draw upon. It is subject to us.
This means that AI is summative, not creative. It possesses generative skills that mimic creativity, but it does not stretch beyond human imagination—it cannot create an impressionist image without knowing our long history of loving impressionist paintings.
So, AI’s opportunities are finite. For AI to progress and be effective, it needs to draw upon the best of human thought—and the best of human thought is likely ahead of us. This means that AI, as an industry, is in our hands.
Yes, its growth has been massive, but the future’s best use of it is up to us. We can compare it to industrialization, which did not replace human labor. Even after the advent of the factory, human labor was still needed. Labor simply transitioned to operating within and beside machines. As industrialization revolutionized human labor, that same process is happening now with AI.
We will continue to engineer what AI can do. It acts based on human innovation and human prompts.
A note of justified worry is the easy replacement of artistic expression. Art itself can be threatened by generative AI. Yet, this gives us more reason to study and respond to it. Should we consider image generation by AI as harmful to human creativity because it threatens the human power of artistic value? That alone is a reason to be engaged in a university setting.
Finally, a note of encouragement. We already can discern AI. We know when a video or a write-up is from AI. We call it cheap, lazy, low quality, inhuman, and tasteless.
We are in the middle of a complex relationship with technology. We often hate it but cannot abandon its efficacy and efficiency.
AI brings cautions we’ve never had to confront before as a human family. These questions are answered in settings dedicated to research, learning, and debate. AI demands we go to college—morally, practically, and in understanding the future of human economic systems.
Brent Yergensen, Ph.D. serves as Provost at Southern Virginia University, and is a published researcher, poet, and essayist.
- Learner agency comes first in AI-driven digital literacy - October 7, 2026
- Authority, responsibility, and accountability for AI in higher ed - October 5, 2026
- Why AI doesn’t replace education—it demands it - October 2, 2026