AI takes a seat in the classroom and lecture hall but no threat to teachers

Artificial intelligence a lived reality today

- By Boitumelo Kgobotlo and Mzwandile kaBizokwakhe

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not knocking on the door of education but has walked in, taken a seat, and is already shaping the learning of the future.

What is AI and how is it changing our civilisation?

In the past three years, AI program ChatGPT has become not just a household name but a classhold one too. Yet, in the last 10 months, it has been joined by other AI tools, DeepSeek, Google Gemini and Microsoft CoPilot, to name but a few. What these programs accomplish is the crux of the controversy.

These programs, along with about 20 others, collate information and present it in a user-friendly format. And this is AI’s foundational threat to education as we know it. If everybody has all the information they need, is education as an acquisition of knowledge still relevant?

According to experts from the University of Free State, the value of universities is not only intact but is more crucial than ever.

But Herkulaas Combrink, senior lecturer and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures (ICDF), also acknowledged concern that qualifications might lose their value if AI tools can match or exceed human performance.