Fresh insights and discussions from the latest research into the impact of AI on higher education

AI is transforming every commercial industry it touches. But it’s also changing the way we perform science, collect and analyze data, and even educate our young people. In Degrees of Change: What AI Means for Education and the Next Generation, Microsoft Chief Data Scientist and Director of AI for Good Lab Juan M. Lavista Ferres along with 14 groups of scholars from 16 prestigious universities share their original scholarship and practical insights on the future of education and workforce readiness.

This first book in the new Microsoft AI Economy Series from Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute explores how AI technologies – both those already existing and some still in the pipeline – should and will shape the education experience for students, educators and institutions. They discuss everything from the way that engineering and computer science will be taught in the future to how labor markets may incorporate a new crop of professionals with different competencies. You’ll also find:

• Original research on the necessity of AI literacy in society and ethics literacy in AI development
• Discussions of how training and education need to go beyond basic AI competencies and encompass the development of flexible mental models and decision-making heuristics
• The latest evidence on how commercially available large language models are impacting college-educated workers and how institutions and educators can adjust to that impact

Benefiting industry, government and policymakers, as well as university and college educators and administrators Degrees of Change delivers eye-opening explorations of issues that will work to transform the way we educate and train students. It offers a clarification of the role that AI will play in higher education and how we can best adapt to these new technologies.

JUAN M. LAVISTA FERRES is Microsoft’s Chief Data Scientist and Corporate Vice President. He serves as Lab Director of Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab and Director of the AI Economy Institute. He leads a team of data scientists and researchers specializing in AI, machine learning, and statistical modeling who partner with domain experts to address some of society’s greatest challenges.