By Kyle Patrick Smith, CEO of HRKyle Services

I have been watching an interesting debate unfold at Kent State University.

Admittedly, I pay a little more attention to Kent State than the average person. My son, Nathan Smith, is currently serving as President of Kent State’s Undergraduate Student Government. So when an issue becomes a significant topic on campus—and particularly when he finds himself in the middle of it—I notice.

But this particular debate quickly became much bigger to me than my son, student government or even Kent State.

I started looking at it through the lens I have spent nearly three decades looking through:

The workplace.

 

And I found myself asking a pretty simple question:

Are we preparing college students for the workforce they are actually going to enter—or the workforce we wish still existed?

The AI Debate at Kent State

The Kent Stater recently reported on opposition from students to efforts to incorporate artificial intelligence into university classrooms.

According to the September 9 article, approximately 30 to 40 students attended a Kent State Undergraduate Student Government meeting, and around 10 made public comments. Every student who spoke during that portion of the meeting expressed concerns about AI, although the degree of opposition varied.[1]

Those concerns included critical thinking, plagiarism, misinformation, environmental impacts, data centers and the ethics surrounding artificial intelligence.[1]

Those are conversations worth having.

But one comment particularly caught my attention.

A student told The Kent Stater that professors had required him to use AI for graded assignments and that he had chosen to take a zero rather than use it.[1]

Think about that for a moment.

A college student would rather receive a zero on an assignment than learn how to use a technology that is rapidly becoming part of the workplace he will soon enter.

Another student acknowledged that AI can be used for things such as protein mapping and cancer research but argued that universities are moving too quickly because of concerns involving pollution, misinformation and plagiarism. And a member of student government proposed opposition that, according to The Kent Stater, would reject chatbot use in classrooms.[1]

I respect people’s right to object.

I also think we need to talk about what happens when these students graduate.

The Workplace Isn’t Going to Wait

This is where my HR side takes over.

I have spent 28 years working in Human Resources across multiple industries. I now work with employers, job seekers and organizations trying to figure out what the future of work actually looks like.

And whatever anyone thinks about artificial intelligence, there is one reality that is becoming increasingly difficult to dispute:

AI is going to be part of work.

In my own work, AI isn’t some future concept we’re preparing for—it is already part of virtually every conversation I have with employers, HR leaders, recruiters, job seekers and business owners. Whether we’re talking about hiring, workforce planning, productivity, job searches, restructuring or the skills companies need next, AI is almost always somewhere in the conversation.

LinkedIn’s 2026 labor-market research reports that U.S. job postings requiring AI-literacy skills grew 70% year over year. It also describes digital and data literacy as increasingly becoming baseline capabilities across technical and nontechnical functions.[2]

And we’re not just talking about software engineers.

LinkedIn’s AI labor-market research has identified AI-literacy requirements in positions including administrative assistant, writer, marketing specialist, business strategy analyst, product manager and program manager.[3]

The World Economic Forum has also reported that AI is changing entry-level jobs and the skills employers expect from young workers. At the same time, employers increasingly value learning agility, communication, resilience, curiosity and other distinctly human capabilities.[4]

That’s an important point.

Because I don’t believe the future belongs to AI.

I believe it belongs to people who know how to work with AI while continuing to do the things humans do better.

AI Literacy Is Not the Same as AI Dependence

This is where I think much of this conversation gets completely screwed up.

Teaching a student how to use AI is not the same thing as telling a student to have ChatGPT do his homework.

Those are two entirely different things.

I don’t want college graduates who can’t think because they spent four years asking an AI chatbot to think for them.

I don’t want someone blindly copying an AI-generated answer without checking whether it is accurate.

I don’t want students graduating without knowing how to write, communicate, analyze information, solve problems or think critically.

In fact, I would argue that critical thinking becomes more important in an AI-driven workplace—not less.

Someone has to determine whether the AI is right.

Someone has to recognize when it is wrong.

Someone has to ask the right questions.

Someone has to understand context.

Someone has to make the decision.

Someone has to take responsibility.

That’s the human being.

The goal shouldn’t be to teach students to surrender their thinking to AI.

The goal should be to teach them how to think while using AI.

That’s AI literacy.

Interestingly, Kent State Seems to Understand This

There’s an irony in using Kent State as the setting for this debate.

Kent State University itself isn’t taking an anti-AI position.

Quite the opposite.

The university currently tells students that AI tools are already part of how students research, write and solve problems and connects AI education with developing skills employers are seeking. Kent State offers AI-related resources, workshops and academic opportunities.[5]

In May 2026, Kent State’s Board of Trustees heard a presentation about the university’s adoption of AI across Academic Affairs, Enrollment Management, Information Technology, and University Communications and Marketing. Kent State itself described this as the university’s “positive embrace of AI.”[6]

Kent State has also published guidance built around a very different idea than simply banning the technology: teaching students to use AI well.[7]

The message is an important one:

AI isn’t on its way.

It’s already here.

And that may be the most important point in this entire debate.

Universities Have a Responsibility Beyond the Classroom

Universities absolutely have a responsibility to educate students about the risks associated with AI.

Teach them about bias.

Teach them about hallucinations and misinformation.

Teach them about privacy.

Teach them about intellectual property.

Teach them about environmental concerns.

Teach them about ethical use.

Teach them when not to use it.

And absolutely teach them that typing a question into ChatGPT and copying the answer isn’t critical thinking.

But then teach them how to use the damn thing.

Because refusing to teach students AI doesn’t make AI disappear.

It just potentially sends those students into the workforce less prepared than the graduates sitting next to them.

In fact, Kent State’s own teaching guidance recognizes exactly this tension. Faculty members can prohibit, limit, permit or require generative AI depending upon the learning objectives of a course.[8] Kent State’s teaching resources also address situations in which AI use may conflict with an assignment’s learning objectives and emphasize aligning AI policies with what students are actually supposed to learn.[9]

That seems much more sensible to me than either extreme.

Not:

“AI is evil. Keep it out.”

And not:

“AI can do everything. Let students use it for whatever they want.”

Instead:

Learn it. Understand it. Question it. Challenge it. Use it responsibly. And know when not to use it.

That’s education.

The Student Who Took the Zero

I keep coming back to that student.

Again, I don’t say this to mock him. In fact, I respect someone who is willing to accept consequences for something he genuinely believes.

But I would ask him one question:

What happens when the assignment isn’t worth 10 points anymore?

What happens when it’s your job?

What happens when your employer introduces AI into your department?

What happens when the person competing with you for a promotion knows how to use AI to analyze information in 20 minutes that takes you three hours?

What happens when AI becomes embedded in the software your profession already uses?

What happens when the employer interviewing you asks:

“Tell me how you’ve used artificial intelligence to improve your work.”

Taking a zero isn’t much of a career strategy.

And employers don’t have an obligation to preserve yesterday’s workplace because someone is uncomfortable with tomorrow’s technology.

This Has Happened Before

We’ve watched versions of this movie repeatedly.

Personal computers were going to destroy jobs.

The internet was going to destroy jobs.

Email changed how businesses communicated.

Google changed how we accessed information.

Smartphones changed how and where we worked.

Cloud computing changed where information lived.

Automation transformed manufacturing.

Every major technological transition creates legitimate questions about what we gain, what we lose and how we should respond.

AI deserves those questions too.

But there is an enormous difference between questioning a technology and refusing to understand it.

We should absolutely do the first.

College graduates cannot afford to do the second.

The Graduate I Would Bet On

If you gave me two otherwise comparable new graduates today, I’d be very interested in the one who could tell an employer:

“I know how to use AI effectively. I understand its limitations. I know how to verify its output. I understand the ethical issues. I know when AI can make me more productive, and I know when human judgment needs to take over.”

That’s not someone who has surrendered critical thinking.

That’s someone demonstrating it.

And I would go one step further.

The most successful young professionals over the next several years probably won’t be the people who know the most about AI.

They will be the people who combine AI fluency with the things technology still struggles to replicate:

Judgment.

Curiosity.

Communication.

Empathy.

Leadership.

Creativity.

Accountability.

Critical thinking.

The ability to work with other human beings.

Those are the graduates universities should be developing.

Protest AI If You Want. But Understand What’s Waiting Outside Campus.

Students should challenge institutions.

They should question new technology.

They should question corporations.

They should question professors.

They should question AI.

Frankly, universities should encourage all of that.

But education should also expose students to ideas and technologies that make them uncomfortable.

Because graduation eventually comes.

And when these students walk across that stage and enter the workforce, employers aren’t going to care very much about the philosophical debate that happened at a student government meeting.

They’re going to ask:

What can you do?

AI is rapidly becoming part of the answer to that question.

We shouldn’t be teaching students to fear it.

We shouldn’t be teaching them to worship it either.

We should be teaching them to understand it, challenge it and use it responsibly.

Because the workforce they’re about to enter isn’t waiting for this debate to be settled.

It’s already changing.

Sources & Further Reading

[1] The Kent Stater — “Students voice AI concerns at USG meeting, Director Skains proposes opposition”
https://kentstater.com/143105/top-stories/students-voice-ai-concerns-at-usg-meeting-director-skains-proposes-opposition/

[2] LinkedIn Economic Graph — “Building a Future of Work That Works,” U.S. Labor Market Report, 2026
https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/research/labor-market-report-2026

[3] LinkedIn Economic Graph — “AI Labor Market Update,” September 2025
https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/economicgraph/en-us/PDF/ai-labor-market-update-header-sept-2025.pdf

[4] World Economic Forum — “What skills do employers want in the age of AI?”
https://www.weforum.org/stories/jobs-and-the-future-of-work/what-skills-do-employers-want-in-the-age-of-ai/

[5] Kent State University — Artificial Intelligence Resources
https://www.kent.edu/ai

[6] Kent State University — “Kent State Board of Trustees Celebrates Another Successful Graduating Class, Hears Details of University’s Positive Embrace of AI”
https://www.kent.edu/today/news/kent-state-board-trustees-celebrates-another-successful-graduating-class-hears-details

[7] Kent State University — “Beyond Banning AI: Teaching Students to Use It Well”
https://onlinedegrees.kent.edu/blog/beyond-banning-ai-teaching-students-to-use-it-well

[8] Kent State University Center for Teaching and Learning — “Communicating Expectations & Policy”
https://www.kent.edu/ctl/communicating-expectations-policy

[9] Kent State University Center for Teaching and Learning — “Misaligned GenAI Use”
https://www.kent.edu/ctl/misaligned-genai-use