AI and It's Effects on Academia by Sehej Sethi
- sehejkaursethi
- Nov 27, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 1, 2025
November 20th, 2025
Executive Summary
Higher academia has undergone a significant transformation due to the emergence of AI
technology and large language models. This 180-degree turn in higher education will set in
motion major transformations, including new teaching methods and automated study systems.
The AI-driven world presents universities with a dilemma: it offers opportunities to enhance
knowledge accessibility and accelerate research processes, while also posing risks to critical
thinking. The paradox that universities face includes expanding access to knowledge alongside
widening educational inequality, the consolidation of power within private entities, and the
exploitation of resources.
To explore this significant topic, I interviewed six professors who are scholars and practitioners
across public policy, technology, education, and political science. I qualitatively coded their
interviews to form 7 major themes. I interviewed Ron Hayduk, Dr. Andres Fortino, Thomas
Blaylock, Steven Goss, Domingo Morel, and Cyril Ghosh, and this paper investigates how AI is
shaping academia from a theoretical, practical, and futuristic lens. Through the thematic
qualitative analysis, these experts do not believe that AI will replace higher education. They
argue that AI can be integrated across educational institutions to strengthen the mission of
education. However, this integration will involve restructuring academic institutions to shift
their focus from churning out and delivering information and knowledge to cultivating
meaning-making and enhancing critical thinking through a mix of AI and human knowledge
systems. Left unregulated, AI is likely to exacerbate global inequality and undermine democratic
capacity, making the mission of institutions more urgent: redefining learning, research, and
control.
Thesis: Higher education will not be adversely affected by AI, but AI's effects will lead to a
restructuring of the epistemic purpose of education. Therefore, the purpose of policymaking
will be to redesign educational structures to integrate AI without deepening existing
socioeconomic inequalities.
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