Kerry NiceIn which it is urged that universities counter AI marketing hype and safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. Refute harmful tropes (lazy students) and false framing (efficiency and inevitably). AI hype cycles go back to at least the 80s. "Artificial intelligence" is itself a marketing phrase. Focus on relationship between technology and society to reclaim AI as scientific field.
AI as educational technology, we need to be clear about the *purpose* of education, is AI use incompatible? University administrators see opportunity to cut costs/increase efficiency, continuation of neoliberalising higher education. Inevitability/irreversibility of AI is product of AI hype, but just the latest boom/bust cycle going back to the 80s. Anthropomorphism helps the illusion of intelligence. Will students really not be able to find jobs if they don't learn AI? Concerns about not actually learning, deskilling.
Five principals: honesty (no secret AI use/no unfounded claims about capabilities), scrupulousness (only use for well-specified and validated uses, is the technology appropriate for the purpose), transparency (open source and reproducibility), independence (unbiased by AI companies agendas/conflicts of interest), responsibility (no irresponsible/harmful usage). Concluding "That work-the real work of teaching and learning-cannot be automated."
167 #365papers
https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.17065099
Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia
167 #365papers
https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.17065099
Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia
Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia
Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously to a) counter the technology industry's marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues.