Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a lived reality in higher education, and its impact is already staggering worldwide. A recent PwC report projects that AI could contribute as much as $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Interestingly, Pakistan ranks among the top countries driving traffic to ChatGPT, though most users rely on its free version.
In Pakistan, particularly in the private sector, universities are racing to capitalize on the AI moment. New undergraduate and graduate programs in computer science now include explicit AI pathways, while short-term certification courses promise to “upgrade” the skills of professionals. Institutions proudly market themselves as pioneers of an AI revolution in education, with slogans such as “Step into the World of AI” and “Revolutionizing Your Future with AI.”
The real challenge is to design institutions where technology serves as a tool to amplify human potential rather than diminish it.
This embrace of AI has created excitement but also raised profound questions. What does it mean for disciplines beyond computing? How are the social sciences and humanities (SSH)-long the bedrock of critical thinking, cultural reflection, and civic imagination-being reshaped, sidelined, or erased in the rush toward AI-powered education?
How can a religion, culture, or philosophy professor compete with the rhetoric of “AI-powered learning”? What becomes of the anthropologist’s fieldwork, the historian’s archival research, or the linguist’s close analysis of language in a university increasingly judged by AI’s ability to generate revenue?
For university management, disciplines such as SSH are becoming “loss-making.” Some private institutions have already closed admissions to these programs, reallocating resources and classrooms to computing and other “marketable” fields. The irony is stark: just as AI raises new ethical, political, and social dilemmas, the very disciplines best equipped to examine those dilemmas are being sacrificed.
The critical questions are: Are Pakistan’s universities striking a balance? Do industries need humans, AI, or both? Do institutions have a strategy for harnessing AI, or are they simply swept up in hype?
The danger lies not in AI itself but in how universities position it. In the global north, AI is integrated discreetly, not trumpeted as a marketing gimmick. In Pakistan, by contrast, AI dominates admission campaigns. Students are promised they will become “AI-ready graduates,” as if other forms of learning are outdated relics.
The trend is so pronounced that some universities are reshaping their identity around AI without significant investment. Vision and mission statements are being rewritten to highlight AI, and some institutions have even renamed themselves to signal commitment, echoing Abu Dhabi’s Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence. Such rebranding may win short-term attention, but it raises the question: are universities becoming so captivated by AI’s revenue potential that they risk neglecting their role as institutions of holistic human development?
Behind the glossy slogans lies an unsettling reality. Many educators, particularly in SSH, are being pushed to the margins. Courses in philosophy, history, linguistics, literature, and anthropology-once the heart of a university education-are now dismissed as non-essential. Faculty members who have spent decades cultivating scholarship suddenly find themselves defending the very existence of their disciplines against their universities’ obsession with market trends.
A university that silences its philosophers, sociologists, and linguists in favor of coders risks producing graduates who are technically skilled but ethically and imaginatively tone-deaf: innovative yet blind to the human costs of innovation.
The pendulum in Pakistan has swung too far toward technological enthusiasm. By closing doors on disciplines deemed “non-profitable,” universities risk undermining precisely those qualities-critical thinking, ethical reasoning, cultural understanding-that AI cannot replicate. If all students are trained only to use or produce AI tools, who will ask about their ethical use, their impact on inequality, or their role in global power structures?
This challenge is not unique to Pakistan, but the speed of the shift here, without a long-term strategy, makes it more urgent. While northern universities integrate AI carefully, Pakistani institutions have turned it into spectacle, treating it as a revenue-generating machine. The spectacle may sell seats, but it does little to ensure graduates are genuinely prepared for the complexities of the future.
I recall a conversation with the late Dr. Hassan Sohaib Murad, the visionary founder of the University of Management and Technology, Lahore. He reminded me that while SSH may not be profit-generating, they shape the destiny of a nation. That vision today seems increasingly distant. Caught in the rhetoric of “AI-powered education,” universities now measure success in terms of revenue. In this race, the very disciplines Dr. Hassan valued for social welfare and nation-building are being sidelined, leaving educators powerless in shaping the future they were once entrusted to nurture.
The bottom line is this: will AI remain subservient to human purpose, or will humans become subservient to AI? The answer depends on how universities craft their policies today. Pakistan has the chance to lead, not by mimicking hype, but by cultivating a balanced model of AI-powered education-one that integrates technology while preserving the irreplaceable role of human insight.
The real challenge is to design institutions where both coexist productively, with technology serving as a tool to amplify human potential rather than diminish it. Universities that achieve this balance will prepare their graduates not only for jobs but also for citizenship, leadership, and creativity in a world that still needs human imagination more than ever.
Until then, universities will continue to treat educators less as custodians of knowledge and more as revenue generators, while viewing students primarily as customers.
The first author is a Professor of English at Riphah International University, Lahore. He is a lead guest editor at Emerald and Springer publishing.
The second author is an Assistant Professor of English at Govt. Graduate College for Women, Samanabad, Lahore