The Earthquake That's Coming

João Canto

A lot of ink has been spilled about the advent of artificial intelligence and its impact on industry and society. Interestingly, one of the responses to this earthquake, which is coming, seems to be the valorization of a super-specialization of teaching and a repetition, until exhaustion, of a set of applicational trivialities (millimetrically different from each other).

A lot of ink has been spilled about the advent of artificial intelligence and its impact on industry and society. Interestingly, one of the responses to this earthquake, which is coming, seems to be the valorization of a super-specialization of teaching and a repetition, until exhaustion, of a set of applicational trivialities (millimetrically different from each other). It should be noted that the primary objective of this new automation cycle is precisely to replace human beings in the tasks of repeating processes, increasingly complex, in all areas.

In this way, not only are we not responding to the challenge, but we are "covering the sun with a sieve". In fact, the great value of the 21st century will be the ability to solve complex problems, using a framework of advanced scientific concepts, which will allow human creativity to be leveraged.

To navigate this storm, a higher education course in the field of engineering must provide the graduate with these advanced scientific concepts, namely in basic sciences such as Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry or Biology. These are the great weapons that make it possible to fight obscurantism. It is true that the most applied subjects are more appealing, especially because the result of the effort developed is quickly observed.

However, it is the deeper matters, whose fruit is later, that allow us to expand our capacities to a large extent. Make no mistake, this study requires effort and dedication: the work of a lifetime, of authentic giants, cannot be appropriated without difficulties (such an idea is intellectual arrogance).

Thus, it is necessary to promote humility to accept failure, error, as irreplaceable parts of life. The process of trial and error itself is fundamental to the scientific method. Furthermore, a certain idea of compartmentalization of knowledge has no place here. On the contrary, the more you progress, the greater the need to use the previous themes, which presupposes your mastery (and not your discard).

Serenity is essential to establish a deeper understanding of the themes and the relationships between them, which, inherent to the human condition, only emerges with time (and dedication).

Failing here will lead to a narrowing of knowledge, which will cut graduates from the elementary tools for thinking and solving new problems. We will no longer be able to see the forest and will only see a little bit of the bark of one of the trees.

João Canto
Director of the Degree in Electrical Engineering at Lusófona University