That is a raging question these days. In today’s Martin Center article, economics professor Richard Vedder looks at the prospects and offers three possibilities. He admits immediately that economists have no special ability to predict the future, pointing to several famously wrong predictions by economists in the past.

First, there is a pessimistic possibility. Vedder writes, “Since college is primarily viewed as an investment in ‘human capital’ improving vocational outcomes, AI could be devastating, since human brainpower is being replaced by sophisticated computer-based machinery. There’s the ‘dismal science’ of economics at work!”

But things might turn out far better than that.

Vedder continues:

Productivity will explode as a consequence of this most dramatic technological advance in hundreds of years. While the owners and producers of AI technology will derive huge financial benefits, other Americans will gain, as well, from growing incomes. Moreover, AI probably is not much help in dealing with an overflowing toilet and cannot do welding or roofing. AI doesn’t do beautiful painting or, at this stage at least, write beautiful symphonic music. With rising incomes, there will be enhanced demand for plumbers, fine painting, and roofers. Indeed, AI might favor those doing some forms of manual labor or even studying the arts and humanities.

But we will probably experience something in between those two extremes:

Maybe we are overpromoting AI a bit, and both its impact on society as a whole and on America’s colleges and universities will be notable but not revolutionary. After all, for two or three generations, computers have substituted machines for workers performing mathematical calculations — roughly what AI purports to do. And while computers have changed our lives importantly, it is not clear what they specifically did for university growth — probably enhanced it a bit but not in a revolutionary fashion.

I agree. AI will undoubtedly cause some major adjustments, but people and institutions are good at compensating.