Does a Masters (Taught) in History still have a point when AI can generate so much by itself?

Sussex18

Thoughts? An assignment that would have taken days if not weeks can now be generated by AI in seconds.

Thinking of doing an M.A but not sure if the point now…In the past work was our own.

Peregrinus

There is nothing to stop you doing a postgraduate degree and writing your assignments and your thesis yourself, without any use of AI. The educational benefit that accrues to you from doing this will be the same as it always was.

Manic Moran

Le me know when an AI is capable of wandering down to an archive pulling boxes off a shelf and opening them.

About half of my thesis bibliography was sourced from documents not found on the internet by my physically turning up at the US National Archives in Maryland, regional archives in Illinois, and Armor archives in Georgia.

Better yet, I'll wait for an AI to get a security clearance, open classified boxes and identify files warranting a Freedom of Information Act Request for declassification, and then use them in a thesis.

Part of the point of the thesis is to add something new to whatever is already out there. The Masters isn't just a check on learning like a Bachelor's degree, it indicates that you are capable of increasing the world's knowledge. Telling AI to spit out a paper on "X" shouldn't be Master's level.

Sussex18

Thanks Pereginus and Manic Moran. How do the modules differ on an MA from a B.A.? I was thinking more of them than the dissertation.

Actually it's 25 years since my BA, always wanted to do an MA in History, but it just didn't happen.

pinkypinky

Most taught Masters in History will consist of some modules or other projects are graded plus a dissertation. In my MA, the taught modules involved reading articles, seminars, discussions and essays as a final result. There was far more reading and analysis than a BA, as you'd expect in a post-graduate degree. The topics were more niche.

There's no way AI (at the moment) could ever produce what is required for essays, and as others have said, it will never be able to produce original research from primary sources, which are unlikely to ever be digitised, that would be required for the dissertation part.

Sussex18

Thanks Pinkypinky, how do the essays differ from the B. A.? More niche as you say, is it? 🙂

pinkypinky

Longer, more nuanced. It's also more than 2 decades since I did my BA so a world of difference in terms of look, style, foot noting, etc.

Sussex18

I'm more than 2 decades on from my B.A. too.

-Yeah a different world....