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Research: How will AI and robots change university life?

How will AI and robots change university life?

Dr Andrew Cox


How do you think university life will change because of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robots?

Photo by Alex Knight from Pexels

Might we see:
  • An intelligent tutor that personalizes learning to your needs and monitors your activities rather than check your learning by exams…?
  • A chatbot helping you in your group work…?
  • An app helping you plan your day…?
  • A friendly robot who you are teaching a new language…?
  • A voice assistant advising staff about university regulations..?
  • A robot scientist conducting hundreds of experiments a day in an entirely replicable way…?
  • Software helping a lecturer plan their career…?
  • A robot mentor advising senior staff about unconscious bias…?
  • The library as a living, lifelong learning companion…?
These are some of the things that are being imagined as the future of universities with AI and robots. Of
course, this is exciting. But it is also in many ways frightening, in terms of privacy, surveillance, and also in terms of environmental impact.
One way to prompt a wider debate about how technologies will reshape universities are design
fictions... fictional narratives that help us imagine what it might be like to live in a world where new technologies are in use. These can capture some of the hope and the fear, and let us think about these things in very human, day to day ways. They help shift the debate away from brochures of edtech companies and knee jerk technophobic reactions, to help us think about what we feel is right.
18 such fictions are the main output of a new project from Andrew Cox, funded by the Society of
Research into Higher Education.


So which of his stories seem to you most likely to happen? 
Which would you like to come true, and why?
Which do you dread, and why?

You can also download the fictions on a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence from  https://doi.org/10.15131/shef.data.13139816.v1 

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