The Artificial University

Kathryn Claire Higgins is a working academic in the UK; and wants to raise the alarm.

An extraordinary proportion of her students are becoming increasingly reliant on large language models like ChatGPT and Claude to complete their research and their writing. In both popular and university culture, students are being encouraged to make use of these tools, seen as an essential part of the economy of the future - the same economy universities are trying to prepare them for. Students are often overwhelmed, working jobs alongside degrees, with chatbots offering an irrestistible shortcut through their workload.

Academic teaching has long relied on the essay as a means of teaching students how to build an argument, to research evidence and express your ideas. Now a polished looking essay is available at the click of a button.

Some argue that universities need to embrace the AI revolution, focusing on teaching students how to use these tools responsibly. For others, they fear a world where students leave with a degree, but without the criticial thinking and writing skills it's supposed to vouch for. What everyone agrees on is that higher education is at an existential crossroads. How universities respond to the arrival of AI will reshape their future role in society.

Kathryn sets out to meet the people at the front line of this battle - students, academics and university administrators.

At a time of deep crisis in UK universities over funding, academic morale and the value of a degree, is AI a path out? Or is it the last straw?

Presenter: Kathryn Claire Higgins
Producer: John Rogers
Executive Producer: Robert Nicholson

A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4