By University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Mark Scott

At the centre of great universities lies what feels like an intrinsic contradiction.

We can be conservative and cautious places, with old-world traditions and symbols: at the University of Sydney, our Great Hall and sandstone quadrangle, academic gowns and heritage of classical study. We can hold firmly to the past.

Yet no institution needs to be more future thinking than a university. Next year’s students will be working to the final years of the century. Our researchers are pushing discoveries, to make our lives healthier and world more liveable and safer in the century ahead, looking to solve our greatest global challenges. 

Everyone in our university community need to be skilled in the wise and considered use of the latest tools available to support their learning and discovery today, and their readiness for where technology may take us. Today: inevitably, irresistibly – and dauntingly – the tools we need will be AI.

Universities have always had to adapt when new technologies arrive and reshape the world around them. AI is doing the same, but at a pace I have never seen in all my years working in education and leadership.

What will remain constant is our University’s purpose: world-class research, transformative education and student experience, making a positive contribution to society. Now for a world in which AI, with all its soaring potential and startling risk, is already playing a central and undeniable role.

Change at this speed raises legitimate questions for our staff and students, and AI has become a flashpoint in negotiations with unions around our new enterprise agreement. We take their concerns seriously and are continuing to introduce AI in a human-centred way with proper safeguards that give our community the tools, training and support they need to use it responsibly. 

We also heed the Prime Minister, who delivered his keynote speech 'AI in Australia's Interests' in July at our University, calling for "great universities like this one, leading the way".

This is front of mind as we partner with OpenAI to provide all our staff and students with free and supported access to their advanced enterprise AI university platform ChatGPT Edu. Introduced in an equitable and staged approach, alongside pilots and training programs, all within a responsible AI use framework. 

Graduating students ready for the world of work

Employers are clear they need graduates who can think and act responsibly in real workplace settings, which today includes AI. Technology leaders tell us they think students well versed in thinking developed in humanities programs will be more valued than ever as employees. 

Our sector-leading, two-lane approach to assessment, allows transparent AI use in open assessments while requiring students to demonstrate their own capabilities through in-person assessments such as oral assessments and written exams. 

Cogniti – developed at the University and used world-wide to provide 24/7 personalised tutoring, feedback, role-play and learning – will remain our preferred classroom platform, with ChatGPT Edu providing a secure general learning aid for collaborating, brainstorming, testing ideas and analysis. Our AI education strategy uses the tools, but also tests the learning and mastery by putting them away.

Removing barriers and friction for our people

Anyone who’s worked at or enrolled in a university knows we are inevitably bureaucratic places. A recent faculty Harvard review found it required 67 separate steps for them to hire a single staff member. 

As Harvard is doing, we must use AI to make our processes and systems work better so we can focus on the things we do best: world-class education and research.

Our staff will continue to apply their core human capabilities to their roles, agency, judgment, reasoning, creativity, and constructive contribution, to drive and support our research agenda, and an excellent educational and campus experience for our students.

AI’s promise comes with a footprint

Sydney researchers are already using AI advanced infrastructure, including high-performance computing platform Apollo now available to all academics. They are building fast and energy-efficient photonic chips to power AI models, measuring brain volume in neurodegenerative disease, developing sustainable energy production. And in their global partnerships around cancer research and the quest to conquer diseases still incurable, AI is going to turbo-charge the speed of innovation and discovery. 

Our researchers are also asking the hard questions: What does AI cost us and how do we manage those consequences responsibly? They are informing national policy through contributions to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Data Centres and the current Federal Parliamentary Inquiry into AI and Data Centres, and taking a lead role in researching the impacts of AI on society, education and technology. 

We are backing that work with a new $1 million Sustainable AI Research and Innovation Fund, to bring researchers together with government and industry to better understand, measure and ultimately address the environmental impacts of AI. 

People first, always

At Sydney success will not be measured by how much AI we adopt, but by what it helps our people achieve: advancing knowledge, delivering transformative education and preparing our graduates to lead.