Across the country, people are questioning the value and role of higher education, and institutions—particularly the elite ones—are experiencing a crisis in public trust. On top of that, tech titans are convinced that AI will break higher education, while many observers lament its corrupting influence and ask whether the “mind-expanding purpose and qualities of a university,” as one historian of education put it recently, are gone forever.

全国各地，人们开始质疑高等教育的价值和角色，而各类院校——尤其是精英院校——正经历一场公众信任危机。除此之外，科技巨头坚信AI会“搞垮”高等教育，许多观察者也哀叹其带来的腐蚀性影响，并追问：正如一位教育史学者近日所说，大学“开阔心智的宗旨与品格”是否已永远消失。

The idea that higher education has outlived its usefulness to society, however, requires taking an astonishingly narrow view of the true purpose of the university. Higher education is not merely the transfer of knowledge. We live in an age of informational opulence; we are awash in readily available data but lacking discernment, communication skills, and empathy.

然而，所谓高等教育已经“过时”、对社会不再有用的观点，其实把大学的真正使命理解得过于狭隘。高等教育绝不仅仅是知识的传递。我们生活在一个信息极其富足的时代；随手可得的数据把我们淹没，却匮乏辨别力、沟通能力与同理心。

As a cognitive scientist, I have studied the negative consequences of excessive information. We are in a state of constant information overload, under assault by relentless alerts, updates, and notifications. Research shows that the cognitive burden of lots of information coming at us simultaneously can negatively affect our brains and, ultimately, our performance—especially when we are not experts in the topics we are bombarded with.

作为一名认知科学家，我研究过信息过载带来的负面后果。我们长期处于信息过载的状态，不断受到各类提醒、更新和通知的猛烈轰炸。研究表明，当大量信息同时涌向我们时，这种认知负荷会对大脑造成不良影响，并最终削弱我们的表现——尤其是在我们并非所涉主题的专家时。

Despite the reforms that our institutions of higher education must embark on to ensure that we are teaching our students how to think—and not what to think—a four-year residential-college experience remains one of the most powerful human environments for cultivating human qualities.

尽管我们的高等教育机构必须着手推进改革，以确保我们教给学生的是如何思考——而不是告诉他们该思考什么——但四年制住宿制大学的在校经历，仍然是培育人之为人的品质最有力量的环境之一。

As Dartmouth’s president, I see this up close. Our small, tight-knit academic community promotes interdisciplinary collaboration in ways that are both intentional and serendipitous. For more than 20 years, our faculty in Jewish and Middle Eastern studies have co-taught classes and built deep trust with one another and their students. It was this trust that allowed them to hold difficult, sometimes painful, but ultimately enlightening conversations about the heinous terrorist attacks of October 7 and the brutal war in Gaza that has followed. This type of dialogue is virtually impossible to produce in online environments that are fragmented and hostile, on platforms engineered to reward outrage, where it is far too easy to dehumanize those with whom we disagree.

作为达特茅斯（Dartmouth）的校长，我对此近距离有切身体会。我们这个规模不大、关系紧密的学术共同体，以既有意为之又充满机缘巧合的方式，促进跨学科合作。二十多年来，我们的犹太研究与中东研究教师一直共同授课，并与彼此及学生建立起深厚的互信。正是这种信任，使他们得以就10月7日骇人听闻的恐怖袭击以及随后在加沙爆发的残酷战争，开展艰难、有时令人痛苦但最终启迪人心的对话。而这种对话在碎片化、充满敌意的线上环境中几乎不可能实现——那些平台被设计成奖励愤怒情绪，人们也太容易将与自己意见相左的人“去人性化”。

Instead, we need to create and seek out venues that are distinctly human for developing, testing, and debating the ideas that shape our world. Faculty leading small classes characterized by face-to-face learning and an intergenerational exchange of views are needed now more than ever. The best among them show our students how to hold contradictory thoughts simultaneously, how to argue the merits of viewpoints different from our own, and how to make sense of a complicated world in a meaningful way—something AI has yet to master. Students in turn take these conversations into late-night debates in the dining hall or dorm room, uninterrupted by the likes, reposts, and anonymous comments they’d find online.

相反，我们需要创造并寻找那些具有鲜明人类特质的场域，用来培育、检验并辩论那些塑造我们世界的思想。由教师主导的小班课——以面对面学习和跨代际观点交流为特点——此刻比以往任何时候都更需要。最优秀的教师会教学生如何同时容纳彼此矛盾的想法，如何为与自身立场不同的观点之优点进行辩护，以及如何以有意义的方式理解一个复杂的世界——这些都是AI尚未掌握的。学生们则把这些对话带到食堂或宿舍的深夜辩论中，不再被网上的“点赞”“转发”和匿名评论打断。

The goal of a college or university is to impart, and allow the opportunity to practice, the deeply human power skills—critical thinking, emotional intelligence, ethical discernment, collaborative leadership—that are required to successfully and happily move into adulthood. But those skills need practice. And right now, students are getting fewer and fewer opportunities to develop them.

高校的目标，是传授并提供练习机会，让学生掌握那些深具“人性力量”的关键能力（power skills）——批判性思维、情绪智力、伦理辨析力与协作型领导力——这些能力是人们顺利且愉悦地迈向成年的必要条件。但这些能力离不开反复实践。而眼下，学生用于培养它们的机会正越来越少。

The pandemic disrupted face-to-face dialogue during a crucial stage of social development for the generation of students who are now enrolled in, and applying to, colleges. Social media has worsened the problem. And now generative AI risks removing real-time human engagement from the equation altogether.

疫情在这代目前已入学或正申请大学的学生的社会发展关键阶段，打乱了面对面的交流。社交媒体让问题进一步恶化。而如今，生成式AI还有可能把实时的人际互动从整个图景中彻底移除。

My colleague Kristi Clemens, who runs a program called Dartmouth Dialogues, our initiative to promote human interaction across difference, tells a story that captures this shift. Years ago, students with interpersonal conflicts came to her office to talk things through in person, together. Then they stopped, and just started texting each other. In the past few years, text exchanges have vanished, and conflict plays out on long voice memos that students leave for each other: no interaction, no back-and-forth. The one thing most likely to repair a relationship—direct human dialogue—is gone.

我的同事 Kristi Clemens 负责一个名为 Dartmouth Dialogues 的项目——这是我们推动跨差异的人际互动的倡议——她讲了一个能体现这种转变的故事。几年前，遇到人际冲突的学生会一起到她的办公室，当面把事情谈清楚。后来他们不再这么做了，只是开始互相发消息。再到近几年，连消息往来都没了，冲突变成彼此留下很长的语音留言来“沟通”：没有互动，没有来回的对话。最有可能修复关系的那件事——直接的人与人对话——已经消失了。

Without the skill and will to listen across lines of difference, young people risk becoming more isolated, more easily manipulated, and less prepared to lead in a pluralistic democracy. If they don’t learn how to engage in these practices here, in college, they may not ever.

如果没有跨越差异进行倾听的能力与意愿，年轻人就有可能变得更加孤立、更容易被操纵，也更难以在多元民主中做好领导准备。如果他们不能在这里——在大学——学会参与这些实践，也许此后再也学不会了。

The problem isn’t just a lack of dialogue—it’s rising polarization. As the Dartmouth political scientist Sean Westwood has shown, disparaging those with whom you disagree as the “other” erodes trust and discourages even the attempt at conversation or engaging across the aisle. That might sound abstract, but in the age of AI, this siloing has tangible consequences. When students retreat into algorithmically curated feeds—or AI tools that reflect their own assumptions, and validate even their worst impulses—the divide deepens. Machines are good at confirming biases, real and perceived, not challenging them. We need people to do this hard work themselves, by leaving their information bubbles and interacting with one another in the flesh, not from behind a keyboard.

问题不只是缺乏对话——而是不断加剧的极化。正如Dartmouth的政治学者Sean Westwood所指出的，把与你意见相左的人贬称为“他者”，会侵蚀信任，甚至让人连尝试对话、跨阵营交流的念头都打消。这听起来也许抽象，但在AI时代，这种“信息孤岛化”会带来切实后果。当学生退回到由算法筛选的信息流——或使用那些反映他们自身预设并为其最糟冲动背书的AI工具时，鸿沟会更深。机器擅长的是确认偏见——无论是真实的还是想象的——而不是挑战偏见。我们需要人亲自做这项艰难的工作：走出各自的信息泡泡，在现实中面对面地彼此交流，而不是躲在键盘后面。

You might be surprised to learn that I am a tech optimist. The field of “artificial language intelligence” began at Dartmouth, after all.  And in the 1960s, our researchers made computing widely accessible with the invention of BASIC. Soon after, we gave all students computers and required them to develop computer literacy—not to train programmers, but to ensure that everyone could use new tools wisely. Today, we are doing the same with AI, piloting our first-year students’ writing with AI in the classroom. And our faculty are using AI as a provocative collaborator, helping them translate ideas, explore new directions, and discover unexpected connections. As disruptive and transformative as artificial intelligence may be, the shape of our future will be determined not by machines, but by the wisdom with which we use them.

你也许会惊讶，我其实是个科技乐观主义者。“人工语言智能”这一领域起源于Dartmouth（达特茅斯，指今天语言类AI的早期探索）。在20世纪60年代，我们的研究人员发明了BASIC，使计算机运算得以广泛普及。不久之后，我们给所有学生配发电脑，并要求他们培养计算机素养——目的不是把每个人都训练成程序员，而是确保人人都能明智地使用新工具。今天，我们在AI上做着同样的事：在课堂上试点把人工智能引入大一写作课程。我们的教师也把AI当作一个能激发思考的合作者，用它来翻译想法、开辟新方向、发现意想不到的联系。尽管人工智能具有颠覆性和变革性，但我们的未来最终将取决于我们使用它的智慧，而不是机器本身。

We are embracing AI, but only because we are simultaneously embracing what we are exceptionally prepared to do in our college environment: focusing on what it means to be human. That’s why, even before classes begin, every incoming Dartmouth student embarks on a hiking, canoeing, or camping trip led by an upperclass student. I will admit that having 1,200 students off in the woods with no faculty gives a college president nightly worries. But no phones, no adults, just peers learning to talk, think, and connect with people they’ve never met is worth it. It’s a tradition rooted in the belief that community begins with conversation. I hear regularly from alumni who graduated decades ago who formed friendships for life, relationships that started on these trips and shaped who they are today.

我们拥抱AI，但之所以这样做，是因为我们也在同时坚守并发挥大学环境中我们最擅长、最具优势去做的事情：聚焦于“成为人”究竟意味着什么。正因如此，甚至在正式上课之前，每一位新入学的Dartmouth学生都会在高年级学生带领下，参加一次徒步、独木舟或露营之旅。我承认，把1200名学生送到林子里、身边没有任何教师，会让一位校长每晚都不免牵挂。但没有手机、没有“大人”（指老师等监管者），只有同龄人彼此学习如何交谈、思考，并与从未谋面的人建立联系——这一切非常值得。这项传统植根于一种信念：共同体始于对话。我经常听到数十年前毕业的校友说，他们在这些旅行中结下了一生的友谊，而这些关系塑造了今天的他们。

As AI accelerates, and as polarization flares around us, higher education must hold fast to its human mission. Our job is to help the next generation cultivate their uniquely human skills which, first and foremost, means being able to communicate with one another.

随着AI加速发展、我们周遭的两极分化愈演愈烈，高等教育必须坚守其以人为本的使命。我们的职责是帮助下一代培养他们独具人类特质的能力，而首要之务，就是能够彼此沟通。