At the moment, there’s a public surge of curiosity on any Synthetic Intelligence (AI) matters, particularly these associated to Massive Language Fashions, like ChatGPT [1]. This isn’t a random growth: AI is right here to remain and may have large social and financial implications. It’s well-known that AI is usually a blessing however can even flip right into a curse. In view of its potential risks, many AI scientists expressed their concern over AI developments in a means, which, in my opinion, borders technophobia. Nonetheless, there are traces of protection. The primary one is world AI regulation. Nonetheless, the actual protection and means ahead is the formation of a brand new breed of well-educated and knowledgeable residents. This text exactly addresses the connection between AI and a vital (for my part) revamping of the worldwide instructional system in any respect ranges.
AI is humanity’s response to the more and more complexity of our globally interconnected society and our man-made and pure setting. The expansion processes of bodily and social complexity are deep and seemingly unstoppable. Our present Data Society (the place information improve exponentially however data will increase linearly over time) is quickly reworking right into a Information Society (knowledge-dominated one, the place data is predicted to extend exponentially). AI and the morphosis (formation) of educated residents are our solely hope for such a clean transition. I intentionally use the Greek time period “citizen morphosis” to emphasise the necessity to educate residents geared up with crucial pondering, exact multimodal communication expertise, creativeness, and emotional intelligence who will be capable of perceive, adapt, and in the end harness the large technological and financial potentialities and employment prospects that lie forward of us. It’s no coincidence that such a stage of schooling is wanted at the moment in lots of job positions internationally [2].
This want permeates all schooling ranges of all social strata. A society divided into 1/3-2/3, the place 1/3 of the inhabitants understands and advantages from scientific progress, whereas the remaining 2/3 lags, being impoverished and technophobic, is solely not sustainable, because it can not assure the advance and take up of information at world stage. All folks ought to reap the advantages of information, together with ladies, minorities and folks of the World South. Else, we could face a catastrophic social implosion, as occurred, for different causes, within the early Center Ages.
Happily, the fundamental ideas vital for understanding AI and Data Sciences (e.g., information similarity, clustering, classification) are easy and might be taught in any respect instructional ranges. If correctly taught, they will simply be grasped even by uneducated folks. It will drastically fight ignorance and AI technophobia. Such an academic advance merely requires political will and academic readjustment to offer appropriate instructing of those ideas, primarily by rearranging the Arithmetic and Informatics curriculum in any respect schooling ranges. In fact, we already observe a (partial) mathematization of all Sciences (together with the Liberal ones), which appears inevitable. It’s not sure that it’s possible, given the standard separation of Sciences/Engineering and Humanities in all schooling ranges. Nonetheless, it may be doable, as, in addition to Arithmetic, Classical Research are a great instrument for creating crucial pondering and precision of expression. Naturally, in such an setting, naïve data memorization, or the tutorial providing of expertise on the expense of a broader and deeper data acquisition don’t have any place.
In College schooling, the adjustments will likely be drastic and can come very quickly (most of them). I current some proposals that I’ve detailed in my guide ‘AI Science and Society’ [2], which was revealed in October 2022, and I dare to say or hope that they had been prophetic.
1. Creation of Faculties of ‘Data Science and Engineering’ with Departments of:
- Informatics
- Arithmetic
- Laptop Engineering
- Synthetic Intelligence Science and Engineering
- Web/Net Science.
Such efforts are already being made internationally, as might be seen in Determine 1. Though pushed by demand, the elemental trigger for such a growth is the popularity of ‘info’ (and data) as an impartial scientific topic, on the identical stage as matter (Physics, Chemistry), setting (Engineering Sciences), and life (Well being Sciences, Biology). It appears that evidently Laptop Science (known as Informatics elsewhere) is already changing into the mom science of different disciplines, e.g., of Synthetic Intelligence Science and Engineering. The identical occurred within the nineteenth century: at the moment, Physics and Chemistry gave delivery to all Engineering Sciences.

Determine 1: Variety of undergraduate AI applications worldwide.
2. Creation of Departments for ‘Thoughts and Social Science and Engineering’ in Faculties of Arts and Humanities (maybe a extra appropriate time period can be utilized). I imagine that is my most groundbreaking proposal. At the moment, the Humanities face the best stress from AI advances, which might not be instantly obvious. Certainly, the mathematization of classical topics (e.g., Linguistics, Sociology) has superior considerably. The creation of ‘Digital Humanities’ Departments could be one other sensible choice. In any other case, the one various I see is the creation of departments for ‘Philological/Linguistic Engineering’ or ‘Social Engineering’ in Pure Sciences or Engineering Faculties. Being a fan of classical research (although engineer by coaching), I’d not wish to witness such a demise of Humanities Faculties.
3. Creation of departments for ‘Bio-Science and Engineering’ in Faculties of Well being Sciences. Primarily, this could be a radical evolution of Biomedical Engineering Departments with the addition of recent topics, similar to Genetic Engineering and Programs Biology.
4. Obligatory inclusion of Arithmetic and Laptop Science programs within the curricula of all disciplines with out exception. Merely, one or two (poor) programs in Statistics or Programming don’t meet the present wants.
A few of the above proposals (not all) have already been prompt or applied on the worldwide stage. Given the inertia of the worldwide instructional system, I’m not naïve sufficient to imagine that such concepts might be applied with out reactions or in a single day. Nonetheless, these proposals (and even higher ones) might be mentioned at a political stage and inside the Universities themselves (at a scientific stage), so that every nation can enter the upcoming Information Society period with the absolute best stipulations.
Bibliography
[1] Ioannis Pitas, “Synthetic Intelligence Science and Society Half A: Introduction to AI Science and Data Expertise“, https://www.amazon.com/dp/9609156460?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
[2] Ioannis Pitas, “Synthetic Intelligence Science and Society Half C: AI Science and Society“, Amazon/Createspace, https://www.amazon.com/dp/9609156487?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
Additional studying
[PIT2023a] Ioannis Pitas, CVML brief course, “AI Science and Engineering and its Influence on the Society”, https://icarus.csd.auth.gr/introduction-to-ai-science-and-engineering-and-its-impact-on-the-society-and-the-environment/
[PIT2022] Ioannis Pitas, “AI Science and Engineering: A brand new scientific self-discipline?”, https://icarus.csd.auth.gr/chatgtp-in-education/
[PIT2023b] Ioannis Pitas, “ChatGPT in schooling”, http://icarus.csd.auth.gr/ai-science-and-engineering-a-new-scientific-discipline/
[PIT2023c] I. Pitas, “Synthetic intelligence isn’t the brand new Tower of Babel. We should watch out for technophobia as a substitute”, Euronews, 8/5/2023, https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/08/artificial-intelligence-is-not-the-new-tower-of-babel-we-should-beware-of-technophobia-ins