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Marc Watkins's avatar

I appreciate the post and wrote something similar a few days ago about the existing Edtech on campuses being upgraded to AI without notice, consent, or faculty governance. https://open.substack.com/pub/marcwatkins/p/your-campus-already-has-aiand-thats?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

My colleague taught without any tech a few semesters ago and truly enjoyed the experience, but doesn’t think it it ultimately sustainable for a full load of classes and he could never get feedback to them in time. Still, I see value in the exercise. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-writing-researcher-teaches-without-tools-robert-cummings-vhzbf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=guest_mobile_web&utm_campaign=copy

I think we should all experiment with different varieties of friction in the learning space to make residential learning unique and distinguished from the Edtech that’s dominating student lives. In the end I believe online learning will be entirely AI. That may help many students, but those who seek in-person learning should be given a break from the deluge of bots.

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John Warner's avatar

This is really helpful for thinking through the intersection of pedagogical choice with system effects.

I'm in a similar space where I'm pretty certain these tools can be deployed to good effect for student learning, while also believing they'd have little utility in my particular classroom run on my particular values, while also becoming increasingly concerned about the "technofeudalism" dreams of people like Altman. When I was writing More Than Words I viewed Altman, et al, as standard tech entrepreneurs who use "storytelling" to sell a product. I want to resist that storytelling with counter stories.

But their aims are clearly bigger and entwined with Trump's authoritarian push. When I see CalState and Ohio State leaping in with both feet to give these companies what they need to advance their goals (all that delicious data), it's clear either their leadership isn't thinking at the level you demonstrate here, or they're generally cool with technofeudalism as long as they get to be near the front of the trough. Either of those scenarios is worrisome.

I think CalState especially the end goal is to eliminate human labor as much as possible. They think they have an unsustainable system because they can't afford people. This is their chance to have fewer of them.

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