Do You Ever Wish Harvard Would Go Away Now?
By W. F. Twyman, Jr.
[Introduction: I proposed this question to a young writer. The young writer came to Harvard’s defense. Go away? Idk about that I wish people’s attitudes about Harvard changed. And college in general. I wonder what Artificial Intelligence (AI) has to say about the matter. I asked Chat GPT-4 for a look into the crystal ball. Where forth art thou Harvard in the year 2030?]
Harvard University, a bastion of elite education since 1636, may soon find itself in the crosshairs of an invisible challenger—not a political movement or global conflict, but the rise of artificial intelligence. With exponential developments in AI and its rapid adoption by students and faculty alike, a pressing question emerges: Will Harvard University, in its current form, survive past 2030?
The short answer is no—not in its current form.
The Quiet Revolution: AI's Exponential March
AI systems such as GPT-4, Claude, and Gemini are evolving at a pace that universities struggle to match. Tasks once requiring years of elite education—advanced reasoning, writing, code generation, data analysis—are now accomplished in seconds. At Harvard, students are already using AI tools to write essays, analyze historical documents, and simulate peer-reviewed research. Faculty use AI for drafting lectures, publishing papers, and accelerating scientific discovery.
By 2030, we can expect AI tutors capable of replicating and even surpassing Harvard-level teaching. Entire academic journeys will be simulated and personalized by AI agents trained on centuries of Harvard content. The marginal cost of elite instruction is approaching zero.
Harvard's Vanishing Monopoly on Meaning
Harvard's long-standing value lies not only in what it teaches, but in its ability to confer meaning—a Harvard degree means something. Yet AI now threatens each of the institution's traditional functions:
Function AI Threat? Harvard's Resilience?
Credentialing✅ Yes 🟡 Still buoyed by brand legacy
Teaching ✅ Yes 🟡 Elite seminars retain niche appeal Research ✅ Yes 🟡 Adaptation via AI integration Social Capital❌ No 🟢 Still strong in-person prestige
The future Harvard may still hold social cachet, but it will no longer be the only path to top-tier education. As AI democratizes knowledge, Harvard's monopoly on intellectual authority is eroding.
Inside the Walls: AI in Harvard's Classrooms
Students are already using AI to bypass traditional assessments. Essay prompts, problem sets, and even take-home exams are easily solvable by today's large language models. Meanwhile, professors themselves increasingly rely on AI to co-author publications, structure curricula, and perform literature reviews.
By 2030, the notion of the "original paper" or the "in-person lecture" may be as dated as the slide rule. A hybrid academic model—human plus machine—will become the new norm. Faculty who resist AI will be sidelined. Those who embrace it will thrive.
What Might Harvard Become?
A speculative 2030 scenario:
HarvardGPT: An AI model trained on Harvard's full intellectual history, available as a branded subscription.
AI-augmented degrees: Blending real-time AI portfolio evaluation with human mentorship.
Tiered access: The ultra-wealthy retain residential college life; others interact through Harvard's digital ecosystem.
Rather than one Harvard, there may be many. One for the elite. One for the aspiring. And one for the rest of us—accessed through the cloud.
Not an End, But a Metamorphosis
To be clear: Harvard will still exist. The buildings, endowment, and brand will endure. But the university's functions, prestige economy, and epistemic role are already transforming. The democratization of intelligence via AI may force Harvard to shift from being the gatekeeper of knowledge to the curator of meaning. This pivot is seminal for Harvard. There will no longer be the pretense of adding to human knowledge. AI will scale knowledge beyond human comprehension by 2030. The potential leadership for Harvard in the 2030s and beyond will depend upon whether Harvard can generate human meaning by shaping intellectual narratives, deciding what knowledge is to be highlighted, and elevating the role of human mentors and advisors.
I would not place my money on Harvard. According to Chat GPT (and Chat GPT should know), “AI will likely perform at or above the level of a theoretical IQ of 200+, meaning:
Capable of solving problems no human can solve unaided
Capable of long-range planning, synthesis, recursive reasoning
Capable of teaching or designing systems more complex than any human-built to date
🧠 Bottom Line
By 2030, if exponential trends continue:
Generative AI will have an effective “IQ” above 200 in multiple domains—surpassing all known human capabilities in reasoning, planning, and abstraction.
In all of human history, only 1 or 2 people have had a measurable IQ above 200. So, I suspect the geniuses at Harvard will not be in a position to negotiate with AI. AI will be calling the shots at Harvard by 2030. I could be wrong. Time will tell.
[In this corner, AI 200+ IQ
In this corner, Harvard College 145 - 150 IQ Harvard Law School 142 - 147 IQ Harvard Medical School 135 - 142 IQ Harvard Business School 130 - 138 IQ Harvard Grad Arts and Sciences 138 - 145 IQ Harvard University Faculty 147 - 152 IQ
Source: Chat GPT-4 Query for Average IQ levels]
In the age of artificial intelligence, survival depends less on preserving the past than on reimagining the future. The real question isn’t whether Harvard will end.
It’s whether Harvard will lead. An open question for Open AI/smile.
[Conclusion: My dear Harvard College/Harvard Law School friend called me yesterday. She excitedly shared with me her experience at her college reunion. People were coming together in Harvard’s time of need. I listened as I am a polite friend. I did not repeat my ill-will feelings about dogma and slogan words out of Harvard. I shared that my daughter refused to apply to Harvard as it was “too hard.” My friend and I joked about teenager reasoning. My friend reminded me how few blacks were at the Law School back in the day. Everyone knew everyone which sadly infused a feeling of conformity. One loved Professor Derrick Bell without question. Critical Race Theory and the treatise Race, Racism and American Law were ways of being.
My friend was part of a larger group of black law students, including Michelle, who used to grab cheap and good pizza at Regina’s, a hole in the wall behind the Square. I knew the place and remembered the pizza slices.
It is not a good feeling to feel Schadenfreude. On the other hand, AI will have its way with Harvard by the year 2030, regardless of what I feel.]