A longer term perspective on sustainability and higher education
A longer term perspective on sustainability and higher education
Prof Xin Yao, Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Tong Tin Sun Chair Professor of Machine Learning, Lingnan University (Right)
The final session of the QS Higher Education Post-Summit: APAC 2024 event was a panel discussion which picked up on the delineation of higher education’s role in sustainability that Professor Chen Xi set out in his keynote address.
This session, titled Amplifying Impact: Strategies for Integrating Sustainability in Higher Education, was moderated by Professor Xin Yao, Lingnan University’s Vice President (Research and Innovation) and its Tong Tin Sun Chair Professor of Machine Learning. His distinguished panel of national and international experts consisted of: Professor Weijia Jia, Director of Institute of AI and Future Networks at Beijing Normal University (BNU-Zhuhai); Professor Jian Yang, the inaugural Director of the Macquarie University Data Horizons Research Centre and the Founding and Deputy Director of Macquarie’s Applied AI Research Centre; Professor Laurence T. Yang, Academic Vice-President and Dean of the School of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, at Zhengzhou University; and, Professor Qiangfu Zhao, former Vice President of the University of Aizu.
Prof Yao began by asking each of his panellists in turn for their opening thoughts.
Professor Weijia Jia, Director of Institute of AI and Future Networks at Beijing Normal University (BNU-Zhuhai) (Right)
Prof Jia said that the workload he had experienced in his long academic career, which has encompassed roles in universities in Hong Kong, on the Mainland and in Macau, had led him to ponder how it would be possible for himself, and his PhD students to lead a sustainable life. During his research into AI and the large language model, he had come to a realisation. “I feel that the technology is important but more important, especially in Mainland China and with the Mainland student, (is the way) their life is sometimes, though not always, connected to the technology. This is their mentality.”
He said he now puts half of his professional energy into philosophy and Chinese culture, as he wants to share a perspective with his students that integrates these disciplines into their thinking about AI.
Professor Jian Yang, the inaugural Director of the Macquarie University Data Horizons Research Centre and the Founding and Deputy Director of Macquarie’s Applied AI Research Centre (Middle)
For Prof Yang, sustainability is a multi-disciplinary topic. Students in higher education have been taught how to understand sustainability and how to be competitive in the job market. However, she believes today’s students also need to be taught to ask questions about the way in which sustainability functions, and can function, in the real world.
“Interdisciplinary is not the same as multi-disciplinary,” she said. Sustainability research shouldn’t just be a box-ticking process, in which researchers from a variety of disciplines each have their own input. Instead they should be working together on projects that solve real-world problems.
Professor Laurence T. Yang, Academic Vice-President and Dean of the School of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, at Zhengzhou University (Right)
Prof Laurence Yang feels that the subject of his current research, Cyber-Physical-Social Intelligence, overlaps to a large degree with the concerns of those working in the field of sustainability. He said sustainability covers all three of the cyber, physical and social spaces. He suggested AI can be used to analyse integrated data from these three spaces so as to help achieve sustainability goals.
He recommended a holistic approach so that, in their teaching of every discipline, universities promote a vision of sustainability. “We need to unify students, professors and enterprises, and this is why we created a sustainability alliance in Zhengzhou, at the city level.” This alliance, he said, allows students to gain practical experience and access real-world data.
Professor Qiangfu Zhao, former Vice President of the University of Aizu
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Super AGI is not our enemy but a tool we need to learn how to use, explained Prof Zhao. Traditionally, students have been taught together in a mass-education process. “But with the help and assistance of AGI, I think, we should personalise education and support life-long study,” he said.
In Prof Zhao’s vision, the degree and nature of AGI input would vary dependent on the type of student: whether they are those with an adequate level of learning ability, those who can’t study by themselves, or those with higher than average ability. Rather than being knowledge aggregation centres, he wanted to see universities become culture and value creation centres, and the borders between universities, research institutes and businesses begin to disappear.
Professor Siu Oi Ling, the Lam Woo & Co Ltd Chair Professor of Applied Psychology, in Lingnan University’s Department of Psychology
First to raise their hand was Professor Siu Oi Ling, the Lam Woo & Co Ltd Chair Professor of Applied Psychology, in Lingnan University’s Department of Psychology. Prof Siu asked the panel about the role they saw for psychology, particularly when it came to persuading ordinary citizens of the wisdom of pro-sustainability policies.
In response, Prof Jia said that technology cannot solve sustainability problems on its own. “Whenever they (students and his young colleagues) want to talk about any technology problem, we talk about the philosophy first.” The process begins with their mentality and the role they perceive for themselves when tackling the problem.
While Prof Zhao said that, alongside side computer and data scientists, we do need psychologists with there insights into the human mental states of awareness, consciousness and understanding.
A Lingnan student then asked the panel for their thoughts on the ways in which employment could be sustained as AI’s influence grows.
Pro Yang said that she didn’t consider this a significant issue because human creativity is irreplaceable. “We can use ChatGPT to code and do a lot of other things, but we still need to train programmers so that they can use ChatGPT as a tool in software development.”
In conclusion, Prof Yao took the discussion back to basics. “Sometimes we might say that the sustainability is only a word and difficult to define. But if we have a further and broader horizon in terms of challenges, we can see clearly defined goals.”
He then sincerely thanked the panellists for their contributions and the audience for their participation.
