The world has basically gone through four “revolutions” in the economic, social, and technical realms in the last 800 years.
The Commercial Revolution expanded trade, the shift from a barter to a money economy in Europe thanks to global exploration, the rise of colonial empires, and innovations in agriculture, as well as laying the foundations of modern capitalism. It took 500 years, from the 13th to 18th centuries.
The Industrial Revolution, from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century, transformed largely rural, agrarian societies in Europe and North America into industrialized, urban ones: It took only 100 years.
The World Wide Web Revolution – the profound and rapid transformation of global society caused by the invention and widespread adoption of the Internet beginning in the 1990s – took just a decade.
But the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Revolution, which has been driven by its ability to perform human-level tasks and reshape industries – changing how people work and interact with technology thanks to advances in machine learning, a massive increase in data, and systems that are increasingly accessible and powerful – was launched less than two years ago and has been implemented in the relative blink of an eye.
Already, more than 800 million people around the world are regularly using ChatGPT – the AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that uses the Generative Pre-trained Transformer LLM (large language model) to engage in conversational interactions with its online users.
It can understand and generate human-like text in response to a wide range of prompts, writing different types of content, debugging code, answering questions on any subject, and even engaging in more complex conversational and creative tasks. Like other latter competitors – such as Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI, Claude, Elon Musk’s Grok, and many others – it works by processing and analyzing huge amounts of data to understand context and provide relevant, informative, and often creative outputs. Already, an estimated 90% of students in universities and colleges and even in lower grades use it.
AI will change the lives of mankind forever. It will probably not affect people such as barbers, garbage collectors, plumbers, orthodontists, house painters, midwives, landscape artists, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and acupuncturists, whose jobs involve hands-on interaction with others.
But it will significantly impact physicians, researchers, and computer scientists; bookkeepers; lawyers and their paralegals and legal assistants; lower-ranking market-research analysts; clerks, administrators, telephone operators and telemarketers; translators, interpreters, journalists, proofreaders, graphic artists and copy editors; radio hosts and announcers; public relations specialists; cashiers, sales representatives, product demonstrators and promoters; warehouse workers and factory jobs; fast-food and restaurant workers; and drivers replaced by autonomous vehicles. It will likely change the role of the military and is already putting low-level computer programmers doing coding out of a job.
We are feeling the effects of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) – the use of AI to create new content including images, text, audio, video, and music with large AI models and to perform out-of-the-box tasks, such as summarization, Q&A, and classification. GAI uses supervised learning based on a set of human-created content and corresponding labels. Then it learns to generate content that is similar to the human-created one and labeled with the same labels.
People in higher education and industry experts can be divided into the “alarmist” and the “non-alarmist” camps. This is a revolution that will either be disastrous or highly beneficial, but it is one that nobody can ignore. How will it affect the way universities and colleges educate students in all disciplines taught on campus, how professors and lecturers teach, how students are graded and assessed, and how graduates will be prepared for a volatile job market in the years ahead?
A Google search I conducted of AI and higher education produced hundreds of pages of background from universities, educational systems, academies of science, and others worldwide. Some have even investigated how high schools need to change under AI. But a search in English and Hebrew for texts on the subject in Israel produced an arid desert. Could it be that nothing is being done by Israelis – academics or even the government – to prepare?
Hard to predict; be prepared
Prof. Boaz Ganor, an expert in cyberterrorism who is president of the private Reichman University in Herzliya, calls himself an alarmist, even though (or perhaps because) he and his university are the most well prepared for the AI revolution. “Maybe there is no reason for alarm, but we must be ready to be on the safe side. I’d rather be prepared than to fall behind. We are engaged in an exponential revolution that will create fundamental change in every discipline,” he told the Magazine.
“To educate a new generation of employees, any university must be aware of the revolution; but some maintain that they can’t predict how it will affect employment, so they will wait and see how it triggers change,” Ganor said.
“However, this is the wrong perception. If they wait two or three years to see the nature of change, they’ll encounter a dangerous gap between what they teach and what is needed – and the gap will never be closed because of dynamic development. Universities have an enormous, almost impossible task to predict what employees will need in a few years to change their profile and compete with others for jobs.”
The public universities and colleges receive a total of NIS 15 billion ($4.6 b.) per year from the government, but as a private institution Reichman receives no state subsidies. (Formerly called the Interdisciplinary Center-Herzliya and established by prominent lawyer Prof. Uriel Reichman, its name was changed to Reichman four years ago after it was officially recognized as a university by the Council for Higher Education.)
“We are forced, if we like it or not, to be ahead. For us, it’s an existential challenge, so that’s why we do so much to prepare,” Ganor explained.
“Israel is a Start-Up Nation, but unfortunately, it isn’t yet an AI nation. It became a pioneer in start-ups, no thanks to government ministries but due to advances in research and innovation,” he said. “To cope, we have to change the structure of study. Because of AI, it will be harder for university and college graduates to get their first jobs, especially in low-level ones, because AI already does the work of junior employees.”
Institutions of higher learning, which ordinarily are very conservative and don’t like changes, “won’t be relevant if they don’t change in three areas: content of study; methodologies of teaching (we can’t just go into the classroom and give a frontal lecture); and the structure of learning. Higher education in the world faces an insane challenge – to try to understand how employment will change with AI – but it must be based on trends you identify already. Just getting a bachelor’s or master’s or even a doctoral degree and looking for work will not be enough,” Ganor warned.
Will computer science be in danger? “People with a PhD who conduct research won’t be unemployed, but those with only BAs won’t be able to challenge AI,” he predicted. “The work of physicians will change, and if they don’t adapt they will drop out. AI is superb at diagnostics, but it can’t work alone. Doctors will have to use these tools regularly. Medical schools that don’t teach AI diagnostics will lose. “
Will campuses close down or shrink? “Interaction among students, with lecturers, and with external mentors is vital. Informal meetings lead to shared ideas and projects. And one can’t ignore the fact that students search for potential marriage partners on campus,” he added with a smile.
“At Reichman, we will give an edge to our graduates for junior-level first jobs. And because of AI, young people won’t stay with the same employer for decades. They will constantly move to different bosses, companies, and institutions – even different occupations – so higher education must be a lifelong learning process.”
Ganor and his team are developing what they call an educational Rubik’s Cube, with a different course, including the humanities, for each colored square plus working in a team and on computers. “We move them about. The idea is to help students who choose a degree achieve their short- and long-term plans and to bring an additional profile, in all the fields, to satisfy future employers,” he said.
“There will be multidisciplinary degrees, tailor-made like a suit for students,” the university head said. “I also want graduates to come for a semester, after army service or traveling abroad, to take crash courses here. For example, a lawyer who graduates should come to learn about AI in law, giving him or her an advantage over others.”
His team will build four multidisciplinary courses at Reichman that all new students will have to take in large classes.
“We will offer the best lecturers – judges, CEOs of big companies, and more. The second course will be on the challenges of the 21st century; the use of knowledge, terror, climate, demography, and how to identify fake. The third course will recognize the AI revolution, its ethics, dynamics, and a general understanding of it. The fourth will develop skills – leadership and initiative – that employers want.”
There are some universities abroad that “stupidly forbid the use of AI because students use it to write papers and do homework. But the students are not to blame – and neither is AI. The educators are at fault because they have become dinosaurs. They can’t assign the same tasks as before. You have to challenge students with new ones – with ethical questions and the interaction between people and computer. They can do it in every discipline, with predictions and models. Students have to know how to argue with AI results, how to criticize and bring something better than all its parts.”
Future trends, fewer jobs
Prof. David Passig is apparently one of Israel’s only trained futurists. He studied the discipline at the University of Minnesota and works in the Faculty of Social Science at Ramat Gan’s Bar-Ilan University. Passig is also an “AI alarmist.”
Way back in 2008, he authored a Hebrew book titled Tzofen Ha’atid (“the future code”), in which he introduced the reader to the realm of rationality and a variety of methodologies to study social and educational trends – and assess mega-trends in sciences and technologies that would develop in the future and how they might impact societies.
He said in an interview that there are universities that will have fewer students. “In the US, there are already a growing number of colleges that are closing. Knowledge acquired by people with BA or MA degrees will become outdated. About 120 years ago, most people worked, but we organized society in the 20th century with a five-day work week of eight hours a day. Pensions were paid only since the 1930s. The world is changing.”
Taking into account retired people, pregnant women, and others, only about 65% to 70% of the population have jobs – and in Israel, ultra-Orthodox men are much less likely to work. “In 20 years, maybe only 50% of the population will have jobs because people can’t find them or don’t want to work. Some will do volunteer work. AI will create new models so people can live without working and receive a basic universal income, as in Saudi Arabia. But when experiments with this were conducted, after a year or two people in their 30s freaked out from not working, so many went to study subjects that interested them.”
Passig said that in some professions – from hotel staff to restaurant workers – robots will take over. “New models include a wide variety of courses for accreditation that will be run by municipalities and can be studied from home. The criteria for every profession will have to change, but at this stage everything is very confusing.”
Double-edged sword, human interaction
Prof. Michal Feldman, a professor of computer science at Tel Aviv University, said that although she is “not an alarmist, it’s clear that all of higher education must change and adjust to the realities of AI. No one knows what the effects will be; it’s too early to tell. Faculty must cultivate in their students critical thinking and logic, the basic classics they need for their future. I still view a degree in computer science, even a bachelor’s degree, as very valuable to promote algorithmic, critical, and structured thinking: how to analyze and break down problems. And they will still need a graduate degree if they want to do research.”
Feldman, who is also the head of TAU’s Economics and Computation Lab and researches the intersection of computer science, game theory, and economics – focusing on the design and analysis of algorithms for systems like auctions and networks – is well aware of the fact that AI takes over routine tasks. “It’s a double-edged sword that can be used for personalized learning and to improve presentation; but if it’s not used thoughtfully, there are serious drawbacks,” she declared.
“I hear from some universities that they have fewer students registering for computer science and that big companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta are hiring fewer graduates. At TAU, we’ve seen only a slight decline in applications to our faculty. Just a few years ago, our students got stuck with problem-solving questions and worked on them for hours. Today, they get immediate answers from AI, and they don’t have to struggle anymore,” she said.
“AI is an even bigger problem in the social sciences and humanities, where essays are written by ChatGPT,” Feldman said. “My colleagues don’t know how to figure out where the texts come from and how much is from the student’s brain. Most recommendation letters sent by university faculty are written with AI.”
The job market will change, as it does after every revolution, said the computer expert. “After computers were introduced, people said they will replace workers; with Zoom, it was said that many people would work only from home. This did not happen. People need meaning and interactions with others, not just a paycheck. People won’t be happy getting money for doing nothing,” Feldman suggested.
“Human, in-person interaction shouldn’t be underestimated: We are social beings. Even in a world where AI takes over routine work, people will still need connection, meaning, and shared human experience.”
AI enhancing higher education’s mission
Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, a leading plant biologist who is president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beersheba, is closer to the non-alarmists than Ganor or Passig. “I would love to be paid for predicting the future. All the warnings and predictions don’t surprise me,” he said.
“AI challenges higher education, but people thought the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to everybody learning via Zoom. It didn’t happen. AI will upend all kinds of industries, including higher education, but they won’t be irrelevant. There have been predictions that fewer students will study computer science and many will focus on engineering, but we at BGU have the same number of computer students as before.
“We have seen an increase of 70% of students in the humanities, including philosophy,” he said. “In the age of AI, students are looking for meaning. We would be stupid to grade papers on [the] quality of paper they write; they have to describe how they reach their conclusions. When I was in college, people said everybody should go to college, but today it’s not a guarantee for a job. AI threatens coding ‘farms’ in India and other developing countries. Who knows where we’ll be in 10 years?”
Chamovitz suggested that “colleges may be threatened by AI more than universities. You don’t go to a university just to get a job but to expand your knowledge and possibilities. Decades ago, BA students with money paid other people to write their papers for class. Today, AI does it without charge. Higher education will move from rote learning to deeper knowledge. Why should I test biology students if they remember the parts of flowers?” he asked.
He said that doctors will improve, and students will have the ability to do experiments and analyze data. “I remember when my father thought we’d be stupid if we didn’t know how to use slide rules. I believe fear of AI is unfounded. People attend universities, especially BGU, for interaction – the magic of innovation can come when you’re drinking coffee together. AI will make us smarter in these interactions.”
Universities, he said, “must move beyond simply integrating AI tools to developing ‘AI resilience,’ using artificial intelligence to strengthen rather than threaten their core educational mission. This requires a paradigm shift emphasizing human connection and the distinctly human capabilities that no algorithm can replicate.
AI, said the BGU president, makes students question the value of higher education and turns faculty into detectives rather than educators. Universities with strong AI capabilities maintain their educational mission because of it, not despite it, by emphasizing what makes university education irreplaceable. Higher education must recognize AI’s role in revealing the value of human thinking, speed up the move from transmitting information, cultivating wisdom, and elevate humanities and social sciences as essential for navigating technological change.”
Faced with these changes, “institutions and faculties have responded in two predictable ways: Some seek to prohibit, tightening exam regulations or banning AI outright, while others embrace wholesale adoption, outsourcing teaching and advising to algorithmic systems,” Chamovitz said.
“Both approaches miss the deeper point. The question is not whether universities will integrate AI. Of course they will; integration is inevitable, and in many cases beneficial. The deeper challenge is how do we use AI in a way that doesn’t threaten the future of the universities and colleges but rather enables them to become more distinctively educational, more fundamentally human-centered.”
This leads to a fundamental question: What is the importance of a university when every student holds the knowledge of the world, and the technology to write any essay, in his or her hand? The answer, said Chamovitz, lies not in knowledge transmission but in human connections built on campuses; in fostering the skills needed for human collaboration.
“In every lecture hall, every lab, every collaborative space, we must remember that we are forging minds not just to adapt to the world but to change it,” he said. “Students learn as much from one another as from any textbook or chatbot. They are formed by late-night debates in dorm rooms, faculty mentors who model judgment and care, and collaborative, often entrepreneurial, projects where discovery and failure happen together. Machines can process information, but they can’t inspire courage, transmit empathy, or cultivate trust.”
Business, academic, and national strategies
Prof. Danny Raz served as dean of the Taub Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and is now its senior executive vice president. He specializes in the management and optimization of communication and cloud networks and has degrees in mathematics, physics, and computer science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He and his team recently invited leading representatives from 25 global companies and start-ups involved in AI. The goal of the meeting was to discuss the impact of the AI revolution on their companies and what academia should do to “produce” appropriately trained computer science graduates.
“Pointing to necessary changes in the curricula, they said computer science will continue to exist, while programmer training will decline significantly in number, since the demand for basic programmers will vanish,” he said.
”At the same time, the need for advanced computer science education will grow. People with a solid knowledge of computers, from hardware to application, and a systematic view and understanding of the real world will be needed. Some will work on core AI (after all, someone has to write ChatGPT), and others will work in fields such as pharma, which will increasingly need computer experts as they adopt AI.”
The Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science has already decided to update its curriculum, and starting this year every student there will study how generative AI works. “As for other disciplines, we need to keep our finger on the pulse, as the requirements of our graduates are changing rapidly. Changes in the job market happen so quickly that we’ll also have to act fast even at the cost of making mistakes. We cannot wait until the situation stabilizes,” he said.
“How university faculty teach and assess students will also change significantly,” Raz added. “Today, we invest a lot of money in employing teaching assistants to check homework and give feedback to students. AI can already do that. We will develop AI-based tutors. The real problem, however, is how to help students who really want to learn how to properly use these tools. They need to understand dialogue with AI so they can learn from the process; for example, comparing different answers from different AI engines and deciding what is most correct.”
Raz noted the importance of university presidents and rectors meeting to discuss AI strategies. “There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but ideas can be shared. I studied what leading universities such as MIT are doing; but while they are aware of the problems, I don’t think they have the answers yet.”
As for government involvement, Raz stated that the Nagel Committee on AI, led by Prof. Yaakov Nagel, was established last year. Nagel is a former Israeli acting national security adviser who is a visiting professor at the Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering.
The committee’s aim is to develop a national strategy for accelerating AI in Israel. It recommended the establishment of an AI directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office to coordinate strategy and manage the AI ecosystem, and called for an investment of NIS 25 billion over five years to build the country’s AI infrastructure, which includes a state-owned national supercomputer for use by academia and national projects.
The committee also identified a severe shortage of AI researchers and recommended dedicated academic programs and incentives to attract talent from abroad, and pathways for retaining young experts.
However, critics of the committee argued that it lacked a clear cost-benefit analysis, detailed rationale for the large budget, and a precise blueprint for how the new AI headquarters should function. They also noted the absence of professional representatives from the hi-tech industry or public policy experts on the core committee, a point which led to questions about the report’s economic feasibility and objectivity.
An AI ministry?
Should there be a new AI ministry in Israel’s government? The government is often very slow, and given the fact that so many ministers in the current government are unsuited for their jobs, motivated by politics, and have brought in cronies – reducing the attraction of professionals to senior government posts – this is not recommended.
It seems that preparing for the AI revolution will have to remain in the hands and imaginations of the heads of Israeli higher education and the employers of tomorrow.