A Message to the Undergraduate in the Age of AI

A college junior asked me, "Do you think AI will affect much of our lives?" The pace of change has accelerated to the point that one can no longer wait for authorities for guidance. Everyone is struggling to keep up. So what should I say to this junior?

As the CEO of a firm with an AI platform for treating language-based disorders, I will use a case study to answer him. The case is an AI expert system for dyslexia, a brain-based reading difficulty. Dyslexia involves inefficient language processing, whose complexity and speed require an autonomous computing solution.

From this case, these are the 4 takeaways.

1. Don't Compete Where Computers Have an Advantage

We used to think of artificial intelligence as a simulation of human intelligence—consider robots that perform mundane tasks that humans pass on. However, AI can surpass human intelligence in some areas now.

In the case of dyslexia, training a teacher to support a student with this learning disability takes many hours of coursework and at least 100 hours of practicum. Even then, the teacher still cannot get to the root of the problem to clear the student's language processing difficulty.

This problem has three requirements that computers can fulfill but not humans. The first is real-time analysis of billions of data points per pupil to decide how to design the next activity for the student. The second is to do so at sub-second speeds to match the student's brain processing. The third is to perform these tasks for all students in need, all at once.

In short, AI can outperform human practitioners in some areas and do so at scale.

Where are the opportunities in your field? You may have to re-evaluate old assumptions to find new opportunities.

2. Do an Environmental Scan

Companies undertake environmental scans regularly to identify opportunities, risks, and threats to their strategic goals. This involves monitoring and analyzing internal and external environments. By looking at the big picture in this way, businesses can be more proactive and thus effective in dealing with change.

Individuals, too, should do the same routinely. As organizations respond immediately and nimbly to fluctuations in the industry, an employee's stellar job review no longer buffers them from layoffs.

In scanning the dyslexia landscape, we find that current delivery systems for diagnosis and treatment contain many points of friction. Barely half of children with dyslexia get diagnosed and treated (Cassidy et al., 2023). And even when treated, schools' teacher-led interventions are unable to help them overcome their reading difficulty (Elliot & Grigorenko, 2014). Here is a situation with a huge, persistent problem in need of a solution. And indeed, AI provided a solution.

For your field of interest, how does the landscape look? How may it look in a year? Or six months? What role may you play in it? Do you need to adjust previous expectations?

3. Don't Assume the Innovation Isn't Here Yet

Just because you don't see it in the market yet doesn't necessarily mean that the product does not exist. Tech developers often operate in stealth mode to protect intellectual property and trade secrets. The more substantial the technological breakthrough, the more likely it will seemingly burst upon the scene in finished form.

One may consider the large, intractable problems in a field to gauge where big changes may occur. But it is harder to predict or determine if they will be solved and when. This is because it depends on many factors in a fluid, dynamic market. Just as important, innovation is driven by individuals.

Who are the people in your field? What is their specialization or expertise? What skills are missing? What should you learn or develop to be able to contribute to it substantially?

4. Develop Other Types of Thinking

In addition to critical thinking, other types of thinking are equally essential. Creative thinking involves identifying problems, seeing new patterns, connecting disparate domains, and exploring solutions in situations with no right answers. Creative thinking is crucial, given a world with shifting answers, where practitioners sometimes are still trying to figure out the right questions to ask.

I alluded to strategic thinking in discussing environmental scanning. Strategic thinking involves understanding the situation, identifying goals, crafting a feasible solution to achieve these goals, and anticipating opportunities and threats. That is, what every college student who is about to enter the workforce should be doing.

Discussions of ethics in AI often revolve around cheating with ChatGPT. But ethical thinking is more than that. With each innovation, we have to ask, Who does it impact? For better or for worse? Does it serve a wider good?

In reviewing your whole program, which types of thinking does it focus on? Are any left out? If so, how do you plan to develop them on your own?

True, these are turbulent times, yet they also bring exceptionally bright opportunities. In the dyslexia case, the AI invention benefits all stakeholders. Teachers' instruction is now more effective with formerly struggling learners. Schools get relief from the pressures of low reading scores, teacher shortages, ballooning special ed costs, rising school taxes, and budget cuts.

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