Commentary: Why everyone needs to learn AI skills

In a commentary in QS Insights Magazine, NTU President Prof Ho Teck Hua said that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to become a general-purpose technology, which suggests that everyone can potentially use and benefit from AI.

As AI affects more facets of people's lives, having AI skills will become a prerequisite for a job in the next decade, he added. Just as with computer skills, the level of AI expertise needed in the future will vary depending on one's role and job.

To become smart users and producers of AI, people can learn skills through tertiary education, as well as continuing education and training. Even so, although AI can put the world's knowledge at one’s fingertips, there will always be a need to learn, otherwise we will be unable to make sense of AI's output, said Prof Ho.

On the education front, he pointed out that AI can enable one-to-one and personalised learning for students, while helping educators identify students falling behind in their grades so that help can be given to them early. As students can easily access AI tools to get answers on the fly, educators need to consider how to assess them too.