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The Disruptiveness of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: A Focus on Academic Roles, Tasks, and Creative Autonomy

Authors:
Francis Guambe
Phemelo Meleloe
Mdoko Ayanda
Nkosinathi Mndawe
Sternan Van Niekerk
Joshua Ebere Chukwuere
Yakub Kayode Saheed

Keywords: Academic employment, Academic labor, Artificial intelligence, Creativity, Disruptiveness, Higher education, Intellectual creativity

Abstract:
The speedy introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into higher education is creating transformative efficiencies and disrupting existing academic positions and creative professional practices. This research explores the impacts of AI as an enabler, a disruptor, and its ramifications for academic work and intellectual creativity using a rapid literature review (RLR) methodology. The study contributes to the ongoing debate on the disruptive nature of AI on academic jobs through an analysis of the impacts on academic roles and tasks and creative autonomy. By interrogating the disruptive potentials of AI, the researchers call upon institutional leaders to balance the inclusion of technology with the retention of intellectual diversity and employment sustainability, while ensuring innovation is being done in line with the mission of higher education. By comparison, the research found that the disruptiveness of AI in academic job roles, tasks, and creativity is not resulting in job losses but instead is creating innovative new job roles. Equally important, the research unpacks the notion that any disruptiveness of AI can be mitigated in spite of the known climate of ethical considerations, with assumptions of a more considered approach and engaged strategies. In the future, academics and scholars should continue to locate and investigate ways to better integrate AI into the academic job ecosystem while maintaining the provenance of existing employment.

Pages: 4 to 14

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2025

Publication date: September 28, 2025

Published in: conference

ISBN: 978-1-68558-303-3

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Dates: from September 28, 2025 to October 2, 2025