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Emily Chantiri
As artificial intelligence continues to upend industry and jobs, choosing degrees that will withstand the disruption and prepare students for future jobs is becoming increasingly important.
Monash University’s faculty of information technology deputy dean, Professor Jean-Guy Schneider, said in the past few years, there has been a strong growth in demand for AI study, particularly at postgraduate level, as well as across undergraduate courses.
“What’s especially notable is the increasing interest in double degrees combining IT with disciplines from across the university, showing students recognise the jobs of the future will require deep technology skills alongside expertise in other fields,” he says.
Monash is developing a new applied AI degree that is designed to prepare graduates to implement AI beyond the classroom, from healthcare and finance to engineering and public services, where skills are already in critical demand.
Other popular degrees at Monash include bachelor’s degrees in science, engineering (honours), arts, business and biomedical.
Macquarie University’s deputy vice-chancellor, Professor Eric Knight, has seen a growing interest in courses that train teachers, including bachelor degrees in education and engineering.
“We have also seen a lot of interest in our growing range of health courses, including the bachelor of psychology and our new bachelor of health sciences.”
Macquarie’s other top enrolments include bachelor degrees in commerce, psychology, and media and communications.
All degrees must include AI component
Global technology futurist, Dr Bruce McCabe, said every process in every job across every industry would be affected by AI.
“All aspects will be changed. What I see is that most people grossly underestimate what’s coming in all parts of AI. What we’re seeing today is nothing compared to what’s coming even in the next few years,” he says.
With this in mind, McCabe said every course at university needs to include a component that demonstrates how to best use AI in that field. “Otherwise, we are selling the students short,” he says.
“If you’re doing a degree or even a course in carpentry, you need some sort of module to cover how to use AI in your industry, or you won’t be competitive.
“I don’t predict a job apocalypse, but what I do predict is a marked increase in wealth disparity; those who are using the right AI tools to multiply their impact, will do well.”
Opportunities
McCabe said some of the new opportunities are more specialised, such as data. He sees data training as a central feature of jobs in the future.
“Many businesses are going to need data curators,” he says. “These are employees who are literally only responsible for the company’s information or data; maintaining inventory and looking at how it can be used to create value to train AI.”
He said professionals who were responsible for the quality control of that data would also be needed in businesses such as banks, insurance companies or airlines. An outbound AI customer service job is another potential role.
“Think of AI customer agents or orchestrators who manage outbound communication,” he says. “It’s no different to managing people. Someone has to assess what the customer experience has been like by listening to it, researching and managing it.”
McCabe said there was also a lot of AI interacting with AI in the business-to-business domain.
“Think of any supply chain, such as construction or automative parts or labour value chains. In all of these, the brokering of deals will increasingly involve machines talking to machines,” he says.
According to McCabe, the current jobs at risk include basic reporting, interpreting, technical writing, telesales, audio production, advertising in the traditional sense, and straightforward coding and programming.
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