Purdue University approves new AI requirement for all undergrads

Well that's a public embarrassment...

That was my thought, it feels like something a career college or high school would do. Are CS students going to have to take a “how to talk to chat gpt course”? That’s probably less condescending than making an arts student or someone else that doesn’t need to have anything to do with LLMs have to sit through it.

I though Purdue was a good school, these kind of gimmicks are usually the province of low-tier universities trying to get attention.

Optimistically, the idea could be to push prerequisites to an always-on, ever-available resource. Depending on the major, skills could include organizing papers into outlines, using Excel, or building a computer.

Professors can tailor lectures to narrower topics or advanced, current, or more specialized subjects. There may be less need to have a series of beginning or introductory courses--it's assumed learners will avail themselves.

Pessimistically, AI literacy contributes to further erosion of critical thinking, lazy auto-grading, and inability to construct book-length arguments.