Mention that people migrate across oceans to improve their lives, and one of the main pull factors is better education and employment opportunities abroad. Introduce the topic of how the fast-paced diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) tools may alter patterns of international migration.
Impact on Education
- Discuss how the advent of AI will bring personalized quality education within people’s reach right at home.
- Mention that in theory, people would no longer need to go abroad for education, except for those in core theoretical scientific research.
- Mention that making the most of AI for learning requires the aptitude, aspiration and motivation to excel, and that those who migrate for education purposes primarily belong to this category.
- Discuss the debate about whether students and the market at large value higher education for its skilling or signalling functions, and how this may be impacted by AI.
- Mention that making the most of AI for learning requires the aptitude, aspiration and motivation to excel, and that those who migrate for education purposes primarily belong to this category.
Impact on Employment
- Discuss how AI could lead to job displacement in industries like information technology.
- Mention that the need for a human coder for basic coding would decline as AI develops the expertise to convert text into codes, fix bugs and suggest improvements and extensions to existing codes.
- Discuss how industries such as healthcare are likely to experience less job displacement due to AI.
- Mention that patients would still want to talk to a human rather than a robot and that it is difficult to imagine a warm hug from a robot nurse.
- Discuss how other skilled service occupations that do not require high formal education will probably remain robust, at least for now.
- Mention that AI development could also lead to increased economic growth and job creation in some industries, such as the emerging skill category of prompt specialists.
Synopsis
Summarize the points made in the article. Mention that while it is not easy to comprehend the full impact of AI on international migration patterns for education and employment, the rapid expansion of AI-related technology could lower the demand for some high-skill occupations in sectors like IT and thereby cap earnings, even as it creates various new jobs. Mention that medium and low-skill occupations in services that require face-to-face interactions seem better insulated from AI for now. Conclude that it will be interesting to see how international migration patterns evolve as AI continues to advance and become more widely adopted.
