As educators were are continuously reflecting on and in some instances revising the graduate attributes (capabilities) which are the cornerstone of our educational offerings.
Typically we will develop graduate attributes through a lens of our vision and mission together with benchmarking of best practice and data on industry needs now and in the future. When we developed our graduate attributes back in 2021 we had COVID and plenty of time to reflect on our changing world. But in 2021 we could not have foreseen how quickly our world has changed due to the phenomenal growth of AI applications. We have work colleagues who have studied researched and been part of the development of AI for over 25 years. But none of us anticipated what has happened since ChatGPT was released in November 2022.
AI and related technologies are rapidly changing the way we work, live and learn. Education must grasp the challenge of providing humans with the attributes needed to thrive in an environment where machines are getting smarter every day.
A new book ‘ The Professional: a Playbook to Unleash Your Potential and Futureproof Your Success’ (Wiley 2025) by Tony Frost identifies 5 strategies to ‘futureproof your career success in the age of GenAI’
What I find fascinating about Frost’s propositions is how closely they match more traditional approaches but with some critical differences.
Frost’s points in summary are:
- Identify your prime capabilities that will add value in your field of work. Ask your colleagues and clients about what they value in the services/role your provide
- Assess your enabling capabilities that help deploy prime capabilities- emotional intelligence, relationships, critical thinking and communication skills (sounds familiar?)
- Identify ‘human tasks’ being tasks that require human domain specific knowledge experience expertise judgement and wisdom (as opposed to ‘machine tasks’) including supervision of machine operations
- Map your capabilities against human tasks and develop those capabilities to the max
- Keep up with AI tools in your field
I will dwell briefly on this last point. Most people now use some AI apps in their work and daily life. But many don’t fully comprehend the capabilities and limitations of these technologies. If you ask Chat GPT or its sister applications to report to you on the limitations of AI it will produce a long list of issues that need to be considered. Apps are getting better every day but and it’s a big ‘BUT’ AI make lots of errors and it is essential that users are cognisant of these limitations in order to maximise the benefits of this amazing technology. Understanding the data sources is a critical first step for as the saying goes, ‘garbage in, garbage out’