8 hours ago
4
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has a plan to overhaul college education — by embedding its artificial intelligence tools in every facet of campus life.
If the company’s strategy succeeds, universities would give students A.I. assistants to help guide and tutor them from orientation day through graduation. Professors would provide customized A.I. study bots for each class. Career services would offer recruiter chatbots for students to practice job interviews. And undergrads could turn on a chatbot’s voice mode to be quizzed aloud ahead of a test.
OpenAI dubs its sales pitch “A.I.-native universities.”
“Our vision is that, over time, A.I. would become part of the core infrastructure of higher education,” Leah Belsky, OpenAI’s vice president of education, said in an interview. In the same way that colleges give students school email accounts, she said, soon “every student who comes to campus would have access to their personalized A.I. account.”
To spread chatbots on campuses, OpenAI is selling premium A.I. services to universities for faculty and student use. It is also running marketing campaigns aimed at getting students who have never used chatbots to try ChatGPT.
Some universities, including the University of Maryland and California State University, are already working to make A.I. tools part of students’ everyday experiences. In early June, Duke University began offering unlimited ChatGPT access to students, faculty and staff. The school also introduced a university platform, called DukeGPT, with A.I. tools developed by Duke.
OpenAI’s campaign is part of an escalating A.I. arms race among tech giants to win over universities and students with their chatbots. The company is following in the footsteps of rivals like Google and Microsoft that have for years pushed to get their computers and software into schools, and court students as future customers.
