Coursera's CEO: "Universities are not going to focus on exams, but on the experience of being together"

"It's scary, I know." The American JeffMaggioncalda (55 years old), executive director of Coursera ― a platform on which 136 million people have registered in a decade to follow one of the 6,000 distance courses of its 300 partners (large universities and companies) ― teaches on a computer the latest technological advances they apply. Thanks to artificial intelligence, the Mountain View, California-based company has translated 4,000 courses into 17 languages in a few months, including into Spanish – it takes them eight hours each – and predicts that with machine learning, in a year the language will no longer be a professional barrier. In a recorded video, he shows the best face of Coursera with a speech in English, Spanish (with a Mexican accent), Portuguese or Arabic dubbed with his voice thanks to technology.

With a degree in Economics and English from Stanford University ―where Coursera was born in 2012 by two professors―, Maggioncalda took the reins of management of this provider of massive courses (partly free), which has two million registered students in Spain. He is surprised by the average age, 2017 years old – "I have not seen in any country such a high average, the average is 37 years," he says in Madrid – and that the top courses in Spain are led by those designed by Google, not by large American universities. It is among the most demanded programs, one of psychological first aid from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and another to learn professional English from the University of Pennsylvania. "Soon the best teachers in the world will be able to speak any language," he says.

Question. Has the pandemic changed distance learning?

Answer. There has been a globalization of talent. Great opportunities for work and learning have opened up. I was talking about it yesterday in Germany, they are looking for talent abroad because they need it. Whereas, when I talk to students from Singapore or the Philippines, they tell me that they will work for where they are paid the best.

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Q. What is Coach for?

A. We include ChatGPT within the courses to consult a question or understand a concept. He's obviously not a teacher, but he's a little trainer with whom you find out what the materials are for. You personalize it. You can ask him: how can I relate this concept to my work?

Q. Will all workers have to retrain?

A. Technology impacts everyone, even if you have a PhD. Before, artificial intelligence affected the most manual, predictable and repetitive professions, but ChatGPT affected everyone. A 2016 OECD report included a list of jobs that were at risk of being automated, and those that required a lot of training seemed to be spared. But not anymore. ChatGPT is very good with language, and many jobs use it. It's not that everything is going to be automatic, but some tasks are. We need new skills. For this reason, the World Economic Forum predicts that more than half of workers will need retraining, but only half can have access to training. It's great that universities are uploading their courses on our platform so that they can reach more people [Coursera has agreements in Spain with IE University, Esade, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, IESE or the University of Barcelona]. My feeling is that people are going to adopt generative AI very quickly. You're much more productive writing, thinking, creating images...

People are going to adopt generative AI very quickly

Q. Maybe too fast.

A. Faster than you think. What do I do? I talk to ChatGPT over and over again, over and over again to get my bearings. It's going to get faster and cheaper. McKinsey has done a study on how productivity grows by sector: in operations with customers by 40%. Call centers are going to be completely different. There will be humans, but supervising. The bots will listen, make a transcript, look up the answer, and make a report. I'm fascinated. This was presented just yesterday by OpenAI [for November 7].

Q. What will we do?

A. Now computers are capable of automating a lot of knowledge, but human skills are still going to be very important: self-knowledge and entrepreneurship are necessary to dictate what you want.

Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Cooursera, photographed in Madrid.Santi Burgos

Q. And how does AI affect teachers?

A. If you take a look at a McKinsey report from 2017, the interesting thing in education is that non-generative AI didn't have much impact on the tasks of adult teachers, because few could be done with them, because everything is communication. But this new kind of AI makes it possible. Older teachers are the ones who will see their work modified, they will learn software tools, languages and concepts. I think younger people are more accustomed to these rules and to cooperating with each other. Teachers will do three times as much homework if reading, writing, and proofreading are automated; And they're going to have to teach students how to do their job. In offices, someone will be able to make 90% of assistant tasks automated.

Q. So there are too many universities.

A. No! My niece, who is now in Madrid, is going to university, is meeting people from all over the world, acquiring other ideas than those in California. Technology domesticated animals and then human beings created civilization, the industrial age, the age of the microchip... that now ushers in the information age. But artificial intelligence can't give you these views [a 13th floor on Madrid's Gran Vía] or the experience of eating today with my niece.

College professors have spent a lot of time doing worthless tasks

Q. But universities will be different.

A. Yes, I think they are not going to focus so much on examining, but on their community, on the experience of learning together, of the debates. University professors have spent a lot of time doing worthless tasks, when they should be engaged in teaching and research.

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