Higher Education In Global Cities In the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Transformations, Challenges, and Future Directions

This session connects the sociology of education, urban sociology, and the new field of AI studies. We argue that examining these areas separately does not fully account for the intersecting social and cultural changes underway.

We see the central problem to discuss as follows: higher education in the age of AI is not simply higher education with new technological tools added to existing institutional arrangements. It represents, rather, a paradigmatic shift in the conditions under which knowledge is produced, transmitted, evaluated, and legitimated. This shift overlaps with, and is partly constituted, by transnational migration and the emergence of new forms of social stratification that cut across conventional ethnic and national categories in global cities. Universities in Tokyo, Seoul, and Singapore are not abstract institutions. They are embedded in specific urban ecologies, shaped by local labor markets, immigration regimes, and culturally specific conceptions of academic virtue and the purpose of higher learning.

Session focuses on urgent questions current sociological scholarship has only begun to address. What does it mean to “offer” or “receive” higher education in the Age of human- machine interdependence and online culture? How are universities in the global cities of East Asia (institutions that emerged within specific feudal, colonial, and post-War II development contexts) navigating the introduction of AI tools that originate predominantly in North American and European technology ecosystems? And how do the changing urban communities that surround these universities constitute both a challenge and a resource for reimagining inclusive higher education in the age of AI?