'Overly specialised graduates risk replacement by machines'

Universities must not teach degree courses that are too specialised because of the risk that increasingly intelligent machines will put their graduates out of a job, the new vice-provost for research at Imperial College London has warned. Nick Jennings, who is a leading expert in artificial intelligence and was the UK government's chief scientific adviser for national security for the past six years, said that universities instead needed to give their students a deep understanding of a subject so that they can continue to learn in the future. His comments add to the debate around whether increasingly capable AI will replace white-collar jobs in the legal, financial analysis and accountancy sectors, and what universities need to do so their graduates still have an edge over machines. "I think you need to be clear where you're teaching skills versus core understanding," Professor Jennings told Times Higher Education. Universities cannot end up "churning out" graduates who have specialised in a skill that could be made obsolete "and can't understand much else", he warned.