Whilst artificial intelligence tools are already have significant impacts upon academic education, our starting point as scholars should always be to first ask: why do we provide academic education? The practices, values, and rationale contained in however you answer that question provide the guidelines by which to relate to AI. The Social Sciences and Humanities are comparatively well-placed in the ‘AI age’ because critical thinking, an area in which our subjects excel, is seen as one of the core human skills AI cannot automate. 

Whilst AI risks undermining the validity of many exams through enabling easier plagiarism, misuse of the technology most threatens our education wherever it accelerates loneliness and a disconnect between students and lecturers through replacing human communication. We therefore need to put new resources into building academic communities amongst students and lecturers.

Take-home papers as a form of examination are under threat but we still need to train students’ writing skills. Colleagues are now shifting to sit-down exams, but to protect writing skills we need time for in-person academic discussion to assess students’ learning, e.g. also if they’ve written a text. Increasing space for in-person academic discussion forms part of a bigger goal to build and strengthen our academic learning communities within each programme so students do not feel isolated and alone with AI.