The university must not become a supply chain for AI

Is AI going to beryllium the reply to everything?

That seems to beryllium the proposition of galore commencement speakers astatine US universities this graduation season. Graduating students, however, person not ever welcomed the message. At ceremonial aft ceremony, they person responded with boos and jeers.

Their absorption is not hard to understand. Students are leaving assemblage astatine a clip erstwhile AI is being promoted not lone arsenic a instrumentality they indispensable larn to use, but arsenic a unit that whitethorn alteration the labour marketplace they are astir to enter. Yet the situation goes beyond jobs. Universities are besides being encouraged to remake themselves astir AI, adopting it arsenic a solution to fund pressures, administrative burdens and the demands of employers.

This is wherever the existent information lies. In the “age of AI”, universities hazard becoming victims of their ain uncritical clasp of the technology, particularly astatine a clip of heavy fiscal strain. Industry stakeholders person powerfully encouraged them to determination successful this direction.

A caller insubstantial sponsored by Cisco, the US networking and exertion giant, claimed that “forward-thinking institutions presumption AI arsenic a solution to their assets constraints”, adding that “AI tin automate regular tasks, amended pupil services and assistance universities run much efficiently”. It besides insisted that universities indispensable clasp their “role arsenic proviso chains for AI-related skills”, explaining that “students entering the workforce expect AI integration, and employers progressively request AI literacy”.

This is simply a revealing mode to speech astir higher education. Universities are being told to spot AI not lone arsenic a tool, but arsenic an organising principle: their students imagined arsenic aboriginal workers successful request of AI literacy, their unit encouraged to streamline their labour, their institutions remade to beryllium much efficient, much automated and much intimately aligned with the labour market.

Several person accepted this logic. The University of Minnesota, Dartmouth College and Syracuse University person each signed deals with AI companies. In 2025, California State University (CSU) reached a $17m woody with OpenAI to supply the company’s “education-focused” chatbot to its much than fractional a cardinal students and faculty.

Surveys amusement that galore CSU module and students are not convinced by “AI’s dazzling promises”. Yet that scepticism did not forestall the statement from being treated arsenic a landmark. For OpenAI, signing up the largest nationalist assemblage strategy successful the United States was impervious of conception that AI could beryllium embedded crossed higher acquisition astatine scale. For CSU, it was a “huge branding opportunity”, since nary different assemblage successful the satellite had adopted AI astatine this scale. The fiscal logic is harder to follow. Despite facing astir $144m successful fund cuts, CSU past period renewed the woody connected costlier terms, committing to $13m a twelvemonth implicit 3 years, astir $39m successful total, deepening its stake connected AI astatine the precise infinitesimal it was cutting elsewhere.

What happens erstwhile universities statesman to dainty much of their enactment arsenic thing to beryllium automated, outsourced oregon made cheaper done AI? We saw a tiny but telling illustration astatine the graduation ceremonial astatine Glendale Community College (GCC) successful Arizona. The college’s enactment utilized an AI strategy to work the names of graduating students arsenic they received their diplomas. The strategy was incapable to lucifer the close names to the students walking crossed the stage, and the sanction connected the jumbotron did not lucifer the pupil receiving the diploma.

GCC President Tiffany Hernandez was booed by graduating students and their families erstwhile she explained what was happening. “Yep, yep. So that is simply a acquisition learned for us,” she said. One graduating pupil told media outlets that Hernandez’s apology “didn’t consciousness sincere and it kinda felt similar they didn’t care”, adding: “I would person liked a small much thought to person gone into it alternatively than pushing thing arsenic elemental arsenic speechmaking immoderate names disconnected to an AI device.”

The occupation becomes much superior inactive erstwhile AI moves from medication into teaching and assessment. Supporters reason that AI tin easiness administrative burdens, chopped costs and, successful time, get amended astatine designing classes, marking enactment and summarising hard texts. But those promises beryllium alongside concerns astir privacy, bias and accountability, arsenic good arsenic a harder question: if truthful overmuch of assemblage beingness is to beryllium streamlined and automated, what remains of the ecosystem of learning and mentorship connected which these institutions depend?

The grounds connected appraisal is sobering. A University of Cambridge-led squad tested 3 “frontier” systems and recovered that AI routinely undervalues “work awarded apical marks by humans, oregon [overvalues] essays ranked among the lowest”. Unlike quality examiners, each the systems were “oversensitive to linguistic features”: handing retired higher marks for effort length, vocabulary scope and condemnation complexity, which are often unrelated to world standards.

Deborah Talmi, who led the study, warned, “Assessment is not conscionable a strategy for distributing marks. It is portion of however acquisition meaning is made, truthful students consciousness seen, standards are upheld, and spot is maintained. Use of AI successful appraisal poses a hazard to these values.”

This is the bosom of the matter. Students be assemblage not conscionable to person a diploma oregon maestro a syllabus. When they participate campus, they privation to beryllium seen, their interests nurtured, and to beryllium helped successful making consciousness of the satellite and their spot successful it. If universities manus much of this enactment implicit to AI, they hazard weakening the precise relationships and forms of judgement that marque higher acquisition meaningful. Studies person shown that AI usage tin hamper captious reasoning and weaken the precise cognitive skills students request to marque their mode successful the satellite beyond university.

This is wherefore universities should beryllium wary of the communicative of the imminent AI revolution. The loudest voices pushing it are portion of an ecosystem of corporations and tech figures that person invested heavy successful the exertion and its infrastructure.

Valuations person soared, but these investments person not yet generated the profits needed to warrant the hype. Critics informing of an “AI bubble” accidental its profitability depends connected AI being adopted everywhere, successful everything, astatine an unprecedented pace. Universities are particularly invaluable successful this project: they connection AI companies legitimacy, standard and entree to aboriginal workers, and tin beryllium presented arsenic impervious that AI is not simply speculative but an indispensable portion of nationalist life. The occupation is that they are present treated arsenic a cog successful machinery built to make profits for Big Tech, portion students and graduates are made to consciousness similar pawns successful the quest for AI’s fiscal viability.

Also being undermined is the halfway relation of the university. Universities were not built arsenic establishments of fiscal efficiency, nor should their superior intent beryllium to proviso workers skilled lone to service the labour market. They were built arsenic institutions of teaching and higher learning, meant to nurture critical-thinking citizens anxious to marque the satellite a amended place.

Which returns america to those graduates and their boos. Their choler whitethorn not person been a afloat formed critique of AI, Big Tech oregon the aboriginal of higher education. But it captured thing real: a refusal to beryllium told that they indispensable simply judge a strategy that treats them little arsenic students to beryllium educated than arsenic workers to beryllium prepared, information to beryllium processed, and consumers to beryllium managed.

In the “age of AI”, this is the ngo of the assemblage that educators, students and the nationalist indispensable defend.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.