The Argument for the Future: AI in the CSU System
I teach writing and critical thinking at a CSU. I have yet to hear a concrete example of how AI will help teach writing and critical thinking. All the talk is empty rhetoric of how this is “revolutionary” and “the future.” This talk is being presented to us by the very people who are selling us the product. We also have a promise of “training” on how to use AI in our classrooms, but no specifics. And no mention of who will be creating this training. Again, this is empty marketing rhetoric being fed to us by the people we will be paying for this product. None of this is coming from educators or from people who study student learning.
I believe that the backbone of academia is evidence-based inquiry. We make decisions based on solid and well-argued data. In terms of teaching, we have a lot of data about what helps our students learn. Much of this data is not new. But that’s the point. It is tested. It is verified.
We have little to no data on how AI will help our students to learn.
Furthermore, basic argument, as taught in area A3 classes across the state of California, points to the need for clear and varied evidence coupled with deep and compelling reasoning. We try to avoid empty claims and logical fallacies.
With the push to use AI, we have marketing rhetoric filled with unsubstantiated hyperbole.
In other words, we are being presented with an argument that would not hold up in our undergraduate courses.
These arguments also neglect to address the fact that AI will cost almost $17 million during a time when we have a projected budget shortfall of $400-800 million. This makes many faculty and staff worry that one goal of adopting AI is to automate jobs and eventually fire employees. In this time of budget crisis, the layoffs are already starting to happen.
I also have yet to hear anyone in power at the CSUs address the environmental consequences of this wholesale adoption of AI. Actual data on AI energy and water use are hard to pin down since this data requires the cooperation of private companies. That said, what we have seen so far has been described as “staggering.” I don’t see how this fits into the mission of the CSU system, which in the past has been at the forefront of green technologies. And the argument for AI talks about the “future.” What future are we creating by accelerating our consumption of fossil fuels to power our hastily adopted technologies?
But all I’ve said so far just addresses the poor rhetoric and evidence used to push this adoption.
I also work in a tutoring center and see how students use AI. The goal for most students is to finish the assignment and get “the right answer” or what will get them a good grade. They aren’t working on generating their own ideas. They have no interest in developing their own voice. They are happy to parrot whatever AI tells them is the “truth.”
With this use of AI and most students getting their news from social media, we have a situation where information and thought are being mediated by tech companies. And now the CSUs are handing the next generation of college students over to this control under the guise of preparing them for the future. But to me, it seems the future we are preparing them for is to be good, unquestioning workers for the technocrats. We are adapting them to the world, not asking them to investigate it.
But there is something more fundamental that I am worried about and this goes to the core of what the Humanities explores. The concern of philosophy, art, and literature is to wonder about human nature, to interrogate and appreciate our own existence, and to formulate insight based on that experiential analysis. It is about listening to other human voices and progressing on developing our own human voice.
The move towards having technology tell us what things mean and generating for us the words to describe those things goes against the fundamental enterprise of the Humanities. It removes us from the struggle and so also removes us from the reward. Yes, I can get my assignment turned in, the answer will be right, and the grammar will be correct, but I will have sacrificed the intellectual and emotional process that helps me grow as a human being.
I will create a product; I will not have a voice.