A fresh look at a “robot-proof” education in the new age of generative AI.
In 2017, Robot-Proof, the first edition, foresaw the advent of the AI economy and called for a new model of higher education designed to help human beings flourish alongside smart machines. That economy has arrived. Creative tasks that, seven years ago, seemed resistant to automation can now be performed with a simple prompt. As a result, we must now learn not only to be conversant with these technologies, but also to comprehend and deploy their outputs. In this revised and updated edition, Joseph Aoun rethinks the university’s mission for a world transformed by AI, advocating for the lifelong endeavor of a “robot-proof” education.
Aoun puts forth a framework for a new curriculum, humanics, which integrates technological, data, and human literacies in an experiential setting, and he renews the call for universities to embrace lifelong learning through a social compact with government, employers, and learners themselves. Drawing on the latest developments and debates around generative AI, Robot-Proof is a blueprint for the university as a force for human reinvention in an era of technological change—an era in which we must constantly renegotiate the shifting boundaries between artificial intelligence and the capacities that remain uniquely human.
Joseph E. Aoun, a leader in higher education policy and an internationally renowned scholar in linguistics, is the seventh President of Northeastern University. A respected voice on global and experiential education, President Aoun came to Northeastern from the University of Southern California’s College of Letters, Arts & Sciences where he was the inaugural holder of the Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair. He received his Ph.D. in linguistics and philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and advanced degrees from the University of Paris (France) VIII and Saint Joseph University (Beirut, Lebanon). He was named a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the French government. Aoun is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); and a past Chair of the American Council on Education (ACE).