Your Professor Is Actually a Robot … and Untenured

Do we need professors? After today, the answer is in some doubt. A Georgia Tech professor created an artificial intelligence bot to serve as an online teaching assistant. The bot was fed forum posts from the class's previous semesters. Model answers were then fed into the bot. It (she) was introduced to the class as Jill Watson, an online TA. “Jill” answered 97% of student questions correctly—and they nominated her for a teaching award.

Interesting to note—and quite apart from this development— the University of Wisconsin system president, Ray Cross, has proposed to end tenure, stating that tenure shouldn't "be a job for life.” See here for more. 

I have a vested interested in not being replaced by a bot; but given the rising anti-tenure sentiment and budget crises, it’s foolish to think that my job will last indefinitely.

But I have these nagging thoughts. Why were students so pleased to interact remotely with an artificial TA? Do they value human interaction less than students a generation ago? As for President Cross, without tenure, what institutions will make huge human capital investments to do basic research that allows companies to convert this knowledge for treating and curing cancer, feeding our planet, discovering the limits of the universe?