【By Department of Information Management】
The Department of Information Management at Fu Jen Catholic University hosted an international academic exchange event on July 15, 2026, welcoming Professor Kenny Cheng, Chair and Distinguished Professor at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business. Professor Cheng delivered two lectures addressing the impact of artificial intelligence on employment and education and the development of empirical research in blockchain. In her opening remarks, Department Chair Wei-Feng Tung described Professor Cheng as a scholar of exceptional research achievement and intellectual depth who also has a rare ability to translate sophisticated theories and frontier technologies into clear, engaging, and deeply human-centered teaching.
The morning lecture, titled “2026: The Year of the Singularity?”, began with a review of the large-scale outsourcing of U.S. information technology jobs around the year 2000. At the time, even graduates of prestigious computer-related programs faced difficulty entering the job market. In subsequent years, however, the retirement of the baby-boom generation and a widening shortage of technical talent once again made IT careers highly sought after. This historical comparison, Professor Cheng emphasized, reminds us that the impact of AI cannot be understood solely by asking whether jobs will disappear. More importantly, educators and organizations must examine how AI is changing the structure through which companies recruit, train, and develop talent.
Drawing on large-scale employment research, Professor Cheng explained that the most visible effect of generative AI is not yet widespread layoffs, but a decline in the hiring of entry-level workers between the ages of 22 and 28. Tasks traditionally assigned to new graduates—including data organization, programming, presentation preparation, and preliminary analysis—can now be completed rapidly with AI assistance. Experienced employees, by contrast, may become more productive because they possess the contextual understanding and decision-making judgment needed to use these tools effectively. In this sense, AI is removing the lowest rung of the career ladder, making it more difficult for young people to secure the first job through which professional experience is accumulated. Students therefore need more than prompt-writing skills; they must learn to formulate meaningful questions, evaluate outputs, recognize limitations, and take responsibility for the consequences of their decisions.
The lecture also prompted an in-depth discussion among faculty members regarding curriculum design and assessment. When AI can generate complete reports and working code, conventional assignments alone are no longer sufficient evidence of genuine learning. Participants proposed placing greater emphasis on oral defenses, live demonstrations, version histories, error analysis, and the verification of AI-generated answers. Students should be required to explain how a problem was framed, why a particular method was appropriate, and how they identified errors or weaknesses in a model’s output.
The afternoon lecture focused on Professor Cheng’s nearly decade-long research program in blockchain. He compared the strengths and limitations of analytical modeling and econometric methods, noting that blockchain data are public, traceable, and difficult to alter. Researchers may therefore be able to return to the blockchain to retrieve additional records even after an initial study has been completed. At the same time, the openness of the data means that research teams around the world may pursue the same questions simultaneously, accelerating scholarly competition. Using initial coin offerings (ICOs), airdrops, and token trading as examples, Professor Cheng demonstrated how researchers can identify important questions in real institutional settings and apply natural experiments and causal inference to evaluate the effects of different strategies.
Spanning AI-driven changes in employment, educational reform, research methodology, and international journal publication, the event highlighted a common principle: as technological tools become more powerful, the truly scarce capabilities are insightful problem formulation, contextual judgment, and rigorous evidence. The exchange did more than introduce emerging technologies. It encouraged the field of information management to reconsider how students can progress from simply using AI to becoming professionals who understand organizations, users, and societal consequences—and who can apply technology responsibly to solve real-world problems.
News resource: https://www.fju.edu.tw/focusDetail.jsp?focusID=2990&focusClassID=1