Enhancing Generic Skills Development in Higher Education in the Era of Large Language Model Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

The recently developed large language model artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as ChatGPT, are likely to become widely used over the next few years as core tools in many areas of business. Higher education graduates will need to be adequately prepared with the necessary generic skills to exploit this technology and a detailed understanding of the risks of using it and related ethical aspects to maximize their employability. Higher education institutions will need to develop training to support this and a conceptual multi-layer framework is proposed for generic skills development in higher education relevant to the emerging new era of large language model AI. This model encapsulates traditional generic skills training for employability, the extended skill sets needed for operating as independent knowledge-workers in increasingly fragmented working contexts, and the new sets of skills in areas such as prompt engineering, output verification and bias detection, which are needed specifically for operating as effective users of advanced AI systems in business.