When will universities disappear?

[Corpuscule]

Just had a very interesting discussion with the Head of School and Disciplines Leads at our university. The broad consensus is that the whole higher education system is likely to vanish at some point. AR / VR labs and AI-led online education will eventually turn universities into research centres or make them a thing of the past altogether. The questions are not "whether" or "if", but "when" and "how". What's your take?

I anticipate that, as with many step function changes, the progress will initially be slow and gradual, and then sudden. As soon as society's perception changes, several positive feedback loops will jump-start a rapid decline phase, perhaps taking only a few years, perhaps a couple of decades. An open question is when will it start. Right now I don't yet see any indications of that happening soon, and the technology still needs a lot of work. However, it is quite possible that we'll only see it when it happens, without being able to predict the phase shift too far in advance. Or am I wrong here?

 

[anorlunda]

When you look out far enough, extrapolations are impossible.

The technological singularity predicts that by 2047 we won't need employees anymore for any purpose.

 

[berkeman]

Just had a very interesting discussion with the Head of School and Disciplines Leads at our university. The broad consensus is that the whole higher education system is likely to vanish at some point. AR / VR labs and AI-led online education will eventually turn universities into research centres or make them a thing of the past altogether. The questions are not "whether" or "if", but "when" and "how". What's your take?

You've been at PF long enough to know that we require valid references to start discussions like this. "The broad consensus" is not a valid reference. Please post links to the literature where this is being proposed/discussed. Thank you.

 

[Office_Shredder]

I bet they said the same thing about the printing press making knowledge so easily accessible to the masses.

 

[phinds]

When will universities disappear?​

My guess ... probably never. They are likely to change significantly but I don't see them going away.