Critical Analysis of the Impact of AI in Higher Education and Its Consequences on Students

Introduction: The introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the education sector has sparked a lot of controversy opinions regarding its effectiveness in shaping student learning process and systematic mental growth. While AI has immense potential to transform learning experiences by providing personalised learning, immediate feedback, and access to enormous information, but fears have also been aired that overreliance on artificial intelligence will stifle the problem-solving and critical thinking capabilities of students by providing pre-programmed answers instead of encouraging independent thoughts. Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to rigorously explore the impacts of AI on higher education, with an inspection of how it impacts learning processes, intellectual growth, and the further expectations from students, academics and universities. This research aims to develop AI tools and programs through mixed approaches for the higher education environment that function as collaborative partners rather than just tools. The goal is to establish guiding principles and frameworks for a creative AI practice, incorporating computational tools, benchmarking of successful experiments, and their future applications. The current focus is on presenting early-stage research findings. Methods: Given this research focus on impact of AI in higher education, overviewing several studies, the backgrounds, and research findings achieved through exploratory research to gain a deeper understanding of a topic, develop practical guidelines, and develop more focused research questions for future investigation. Results: By investigating different studies, the examined strategies can be consolidated to address the promise of ethical AI implementation in education and in a manner to enhance and sustain cognitive capabilities among students and other stakeholders while offsetting risks associated with over-reliance and degrading of the human capacity. Conclusions: By embracing AI's potential while upholding core educational values, institutions can ensure AI enhances the learning experience. Successful implementation requires a balanced approach, developing adaptable and culturally sensitive AI tools while investing in teacher training for effective human-AI collaboration. This thoughtful approach considers students' diverse backgrounds and learning preferences, along with the vital role of educators, maintaining human agency, critical thinking, and ethical considerations as central to education. AI in higher education offers significant potential benefits, but responsible integration is key to maximising its positive impact. This approach ensures AI serves educational purposes effectively.