Education leaders call for AI tools designed to empower workers, not replace them
Arizona State University President Michael Crow and education experts from around the world gathered in San Diego this week to discuss how artificial intelligence can reduce inequality rather than deepen it. The 17th annual ASU+GSV education technology summit brought together university leaders, government officials, and industry figures to explore what this year's conference called "The Power of Fusion."
The central tension emerged quickly: Americans fear AI will cost them their jobs. Gina Raimondo, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, said 70 percent of Americans worry about job loss when they hear about AI. "We have to honor the anxiety, not just with empathy, but with a plan and with action," she said, warning that overregulation could undermine U.S. competitiveness.
Crow argued universities must help shift how people think about AI. Rather than viewing it as a threat, he said institutions should design tools that help individuals learn, make decisions, and advance their careers. "Each person's going to be individually and personally empowered - if the tools can be designed in a way where they help the individual," he said.
Retraining requires new incentives
Sethuraman Panchanathan, former director of the National Science Foundation, said companies alone won't solve the retraining problem. Government must create economic incentives for businesses to retrain workers rather than lay them off. "If there are economic incentives for companies to retrain, redeploy, lean into everything that we're talking about instead of just hitting the easy button and laying folks off, I think they'll do it," he said.
Raimondo emphasized that companies must partner with universities to create continuous learning opportunities. Workers need confidence that as labor markets shift, they'll have access to new skills training. "There's a chance for them in that economy," she said.
Education as economic strategy
Two countries presented models of using education investment to drive economic growth. South Korea invested heavily in vocational schools and engineering universities starting in the 1970s, said Ju-Ho Lee, the country's former acting president and longest-serving education minister. "We achieved both industrialization and democratization, and this path toward being an advanced country is based on our strategic investment in education," he said.
Lee noted that ASU's approach-maintaining academic excellence while expanding access-offers a template other countries should follow. When he led Korea's education ministry, officials launched a "Local University Project" that provided $750 billion to 30 universities to reduce the burden on families competing for spots at elite institutions.
Kazakhstan has taken a similar approach, establishing campuses from international universities to create what its science minister called an "academic and research hub." The country now hosts over 35,000 international students and has amended its constitution to list education, research, human capital, and innovation as national priorities.
Doug Becker, founder of Cintana Education and ASU's partner in scaling educational programs globally, said middle-income and developing countries need affordable, accessible alternatives to building universities from scratch. "What they want is affordability, access and innovation," he said.
Agentic AI: Personal ownership of digital tools
Musician and tech founder will.i.am, who teaches at ASU and founded FYI.AI, argued that current technology-smartphones, social media, ChatGPT-doesn't belong to users. "You're actually the product," he said. "All your personal information is in every company's data center. These companies know you more than you know yourself."
He promoted the concept of an "agentic self"-an AI system that reasons, adapts, and completes tasks on behalf of its creator while reflecting that person's values and goals. "This era is giving every single person a torch to illuminate their path through this digital-verse," he said.
Sonya Christian, chancellor of the California Community Colleges, said deploying agentic AI across her system's 2.3 million students is nearly a moral obligation. "If we don't show up and if we don't find the tools to build that human agency using the agentic self, then what we are doing is part of the problem of widening power gaps, of widening wealth gaps, of widening health gaps," she said.
Christian emphasized that faculty must serve as co-developers of AI tools, not passive recipients. When educators help build systems, they develop ownership and trust that carries into classrooms.
Partnerships accelerate access
Universities expanding access through partnerships saw concrete results. The University of Tennessee Knoxville doubled its online student enrollment in three years of working with ASU and increased fully online undergraduate programs from five to 28.
At Air Education and Training Command, the partnership shifted military culture. Online degree programs once carried less prestige than in-person study. "That has been changing over the past four years," said Wendy Walsh, the command's chief learning officer.
Chris Vitelli, president of Merced Community College, offered simple advice: "If you want to go further, go together."
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