Re:Could Google Bard Disrupt Universities?
by solardev on Tuesday December 26, 2023 @05:01PM
(#38776571)
There's already nothing stopping from someone from learning great material online already, between YouTube and Wikipedia and OpenCourseWare and all that. And Google already offers a bunch of certifications that employers could use. I've never known a single developer who has one, or a company that's asked for one.
IMO the main purpose of universities isn't really even education anymore, but gatekeeping. The commercial sector often uses them as a first-pass filter to get candidates who have shown they can abide by the rules for 4-ish years and put in the grunt work. If it were actually a matter of skill and knowledge, you would be able to placement test your way straight to a diploma... that's not the case. They want you to go through the rigamarole of showing up every day for attendance, turning in all the repetitive homework, etc. It's also training for the industrialized model of work that we have.
Sure, some specialist degrees and post-grad programs have actually relevant training for specific fields, but a lot of people don't really work in the field of their undergrads. The diploma is proof that you can check boxes and be a good cog in the machine, not that you're exceptionally skilled or brilliant or anything.
What you're suggesting sounds like an AI-powered University of Phoenix, which is already considered kinda worthless. I suspect such a certification from Google would be worth even less.
IMO the main purpose of universities isn't really even education anymore, but gatekeeping. The commercial sector often uses them as a first-pass filter to get candidates who have shown they can abide by the rules for 4-ish years and put in the grunt work. If it were actually a matter of skill and knowledge, you would be able to placement test your way straight to a diploma... that's not the case. They want you to go through the rigamarole of showing up every day for attendance, turning in all the repetitive homework, etc. It's also training for the industrialized model of work that we have.
Sure, some specialist degrees and post-grad programs have actually relevant training for specific fields, but a lot of people don't really work in the field of their undergrads. The diploma is proof that you can check boxes and be a good cog in the machine, not that you're exceptionally skilled or brilliant or anything.
What you're suggesting sounds like an AI-powered University of Phoenix, which is already considered kinda worthless. I suspect such a certification from Google would be worth even less.