We have reached a civilizational crossroads where the boundary between human ingenuity and artificial simulation is blurring at an unprecedented speed. The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), large language models and autonomous decision-making systems is no longer a distant prospect. Similar to the Industrial Revolution, AI has been weaving itself into our reality, reshaping economic structures, patterns of work, educational priorities and expectations of our future. Yet as an educator, I find myself increasingly preoccupied not by what AI can do, but by what it should do.
Global leaders are confronting the elephant in the room: How to ensure AI is developed in a human-centric manner. China has taken the lead in establishing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, with 29 member states working toward the goal of developing a new paradigm through cooperation in AI capacity-building and global AI governance, to enable Global South countries to benefit equally from AI development. In the meantime, Pope Leo XIV also addresses the ethical concerns of AI in his first encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), highlighting the importance of governance and education to healthy AI use while calling for actions against the misuse of AI in the commercial world and warfare.
As with all technological changes in the past, the advancement of AI will likely unlock both new opportunities and challenges, with gainers and losers. It is imperative to establish a robust ethical framework at an early stage of AI development, with a view to preventing the possible monopoly of AI resources, safeguarding individual rights, mitigating systemic global risks as well as building a healthy and constructive human-centric culture.
New opportunities in AI breakthrough
The AI revolution touches a wide array of stakeholders, each anchored by entirely different anxieties and aspirations. In the commercial sector, the stakes are measured in massive capital and market survival. The sheer profitability of the technology has caused investment to flood in, fueling the staggering ascent of hardware giants like Nvidia and pioneering software forces like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DeepSeek. This financial momentum practically pressures the corporate world to fully embrace an AI-driven model, causing a panic within the working population about job security and employment prospects.
To sum up, there is a clear consensus that regardless of the pace of AI advancement, technology must ultimately serve humanity. It is therefore essential to promote ethical and moral frameworks that can prevent the risk of putting profit and efficiency above human interests. AI tech has already taken flight. Moving forward, the only way out is to educate and prepare society to deal with AI ethically, ensuring it remains a supportive tool that elevates the quality of human life
For example, the advancement of AI that is capable of generating highly realistic visuals and video clips has reportedly led to the layoff of practitioners in the film industry on the Chinese mainland. A similar trend is emerging in the education sectors of Western countries, where AI is posing a threat to the survival of some traditional academic programs.
In brief, we can foresee that highly repetitive and data-processing tasks will sooner or later be taken over by AI modules in pursuit of greater efficiency. Professions such as accounting, translation, copywriting, animation, and secretarial services are particularly vulnerable because they rely on structured patterns and high-volume data handling — processes in which AI excels. By moving these routine burdens to automated systems, the nature of these roles is shifting away from the original manual execution to high-level strategy formulation, complex problem-solving, and the application of human judgment, which remain outside the scope of current AI capabilities.
Every technological breakthrough brings new job opportunities while shifting the requirements and specifications of existing roles. Historically, the introduction of the internet, electronic communications, and social media birthed the information technology industry and created new markets for social media content and viral marketing. Similarly, the upcoming AI era will demand new skill sets; professionals who can effectively collaborate with AI to process larger volumes of information in less time will find the greatest opportunities in this new landscape.
Reengineering tertiary education in the AI era
In the face of the AI revolution, tertiary education could serve as the primary lever for systemic change. Rather than treating AI as an extracurricular novelty, universities should integrate it into new professional practices, training the next generation to govern, critique, and deploy these tools before entering the workforce. With AI automating content generation, coding, and basic research, students can look past rote tasks to focus on the core of academia: analytical thinking and practical application of knowledge.
To achieve this, higher-education institutions should proactively reengineer curricula to ensure every graduate possesses “dual fluency” — mastery of their chosen discipline coupled with sophisticated AI capabilities. This can begin with mandatory courses in foundational AI literacy and ethics across all programs. Beyond general literacy, specialized fields like law, medicine, and engineering can embed industry-specific AI tools into daily training, moving past memorization to elevate problem-solving. Ultimately, as manual data handling and rote learning fade, educational evaluation and research norms will shift to in-depth analyses and cognitive diversity, ensuring human judgment remains the ultimate anchor of the modern workforce. Already, some higher-education institutions, like Saint Francis University, have embraced the concept of AI-plus in learning and teaching.
Policy response imperative
Besides educational transformation, equally important are government policies aiming to assist the working population to adapt to the AI revolution as a starting point. For AI literacy and education, it is reassuring to note that the Labour and Welfare Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has recently revamped the Continuing Education Fund to support working adults to learn skills in applying AI. The Education Bureau has established funding for primary and secondary schools to include AI technology and content in curriculums and extracurricular courses, while introducing mandatory continuing professional development for teachers to undergo digital education training. These will, in turn, help the workforce to acquire skill sets necessary for the AI era, pre-empting the waves of painful unemployment due to structural changes in the economy.
The HKSAR government has moved beyond training and retraining to analyze and address key issues pertaining to Hong Kong’s economic transition as well as formulating the necessary ethical framework through the establishment of high-level committees and workgroups.
As a guiding principle, technology and knowledge cannot be taught in a moral vacuum in an era defined by rapid algorithmic integration and economic success. In the context of the AI revolution, we should focus on identifying when and how to use AI as a useful tool to improve human well-being, putting it in the context of our traditional value system. Our bottom line is that no matter how technology evolves in the dawn of the AI era, our professional ethics and core values should prevail. The underlying rationale is clear: Society suffers deeply when highly skilled professionals prioritize self-interest over ethical practice. Whether it is financial practitioners compromising public trust through embezzlement or construction professionals causing life-threatening hazards through negligence, the failure of professional ethics carries devastating real-world consequences. That is why a truly successful person must “cultivate virtue before pursuing wealth”, as the Chinese proverb puts it.
To sum up, there is a clear consensus that regardless of the pace of AI advancement, technology must ultimately serve humanity. It is therefore essential to promote ethical and moral frameworks that can prevent the risk of putting profit and efficiency above human interests. AI tech has already taken flight. Moving forward, the only way out is to educate and prepare society to deal with AI ethically, ensuring it remains a supportive tool that elevates the quality of human life.
The author is president of Saint Francis University. He was named in Stanford University’s “World’s Top 2% Scientists” list in finance.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
