GenAI-literate employees will need both technical competence and ethical discernment
Industries like insurance, finance, banking and even legal are now exposed to a new kind of fraud: hyper-realistic AI-generated evidence—this changes everything. Because if fake “proof” looks more real than reality, then how do you verify a claim, an identity, or an incident?
Ethel Cofie
CEO and Founder, EDEL Technology Consulting
Founder of Women in Tech Africa
LinkedIn Post, March 31, 2025
When faculty talk with students about generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) the conversations must extend past academic integrity to critically engage with ethical issues and societal impacts. The industries and workforce students are entering need GenAI literate employees at all levels to identify, manage, and plan for a wide range of known and unknown GenAI impacts both positive and negative. If educators don't equip students to be those employees, who will?
University faculty stand at a critical juncture. The GenAI era is not merely a technological shift but a fundamental transformation of how knowledge is created, accessed, and applied across every discipline. In the GenAI era, faculty responsibility extends beyond teaching subject matter to preparing students to navigate a GenAI-transformed world with both technical competence and ethical discernment.
Preparing workforce-ready GenAI thinkers
Graduates entering the workforce won’t be evaluated on their ability to work without GenAI, but on how effectively they can leverage these tools while maintaining professional ethics and judgment. Faculty who prepare students for this reality give them a competitive advantage in rapidly evolving industries and workforces.
The most urgent educational challenge isn't detecting AI-generated content but developing students who can work effectively alongside these technologies. Rather than focusing on prohibition, faculty are encouraged to pivot toward helping students understand GenAI capabilities, limitations, and appropriate use contexts. This means teaching students to become critical consumers and ethical users of GenAI, not just in academic settings but in their future professional practices.
Preparing workforce-ready GenAI thinkers isn’t only about teaching students how to prompt GenAI tools effectively or warning them against academic dishonesty, although both are important. It requires cultivating an understanding of how these technologies function, their limitations, and their societal implications. Students should learn to ask: Who benefits from this GenAI system? Whose data trained it? What biases might it perpetuate? What labour does it exploit, displace, or transform? How does it impact the environment?
Every discipline must consider what skills will remain uniquely human in GenAI-augmented workplaces. In business, it may be developing ethical frameworks for GenAI deployment that balance efficiency gains with social responsibility and long-term sustainability. In healthcare, it could be integrating GenAI diagnostic suggestions with nuanced patient histories, cultural contexts, and psycho-emotional considerations that algorithms can’t fully comprehend. In data analytics, it might be determining which questions are worth asking in the first place, identifying the problems where GenAI analysis can create meaningful impact rather than just statistical significance. In management, it could be cultivating human relationships and organizational cultures that enable effective collaboration between human workers and GenAI systems.
A call to action
The most profound impacts of GenAI likely remain unknown. What is known is that our graduates will help shape governance frameworks, establish industry best practices, and make difficult decisions about GenAI deployment in their future roles. By engaging students in discussions about GenAI ethics now, faculty help prepare them to become the thoughtful leaders who can guide GenAI development and deployment toward human flourishing and away from exploitation and harm.
To make this a reality, faculty development in GenAI literacy is urgently needed. Institutions must support educators in understanding these technologies well enough to prepare students for GenAI-augmented workplaces. Curriculum committees need to reconsider what skills and competencies will remain and become valuable as GenAI capabilities expand. And faculty must be willing to engage with GenAI themselves, even if it means stepping out of their comfort zones.
The question isn’t whether students will encounter GenAI in their careers—they undoubtedly will. The question is whether they’ll have the skills to leverage these technologies effectively, ethically, and with human discernment. By embracing a workforce preparation mentality, faculty can better equip students to thrive in the GenAI transformed world they will work, live, and grow in.
Karen Lochead is an Educational Developer in the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Niagara Falls Canada. An innovative, collaborative, and strategic education professional with more than 20 years of university teaching and educational development experience, Karen holds a PhD, Master of Arts, and Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Government.
