Teachers are better and more actively enjoying AI and academic freedom.
Is AI a question of academic freedom?
certainly.
Overall educational technology is a matter of academic freedom, and unfortunately, the encroachment of (even in some cases determines) of the technical system pedagogy, research and governance have remained in the hands of others, and it requires faculty and staff to succumb to systems designed and controlled by others.
AI is here, suddenly, very destructive and big. Different institutions are taking different positions, and in some cases, much of the teacher’s adaptability falls on the teacher. It is necessary to consider how these tools affect what happens on course and pedagogy, but it is also obvious that teachers who care about retaining their rights should consider some institutional/structural issues.
Personally, I have more questions at the moment, but a few readings I would like to recommend to others to help ground thinking may lead to better questions and actionable answers.
AAUP just released the report that artificial intelligence and academic majors should be on anyone’s list. According to a national survey, the report examines many large categories, all of which are directly related to the issue of academic freedom.
- Improve professional development regarding AI and technology hazards
- Implement common governance policies and professional supervision
- Improve work and study conditions
- Require transparency and ability to opt out
- Protect faculty and other academic workers.
The reports all summarize the teacher’s concerns expressed in the survey and make recommendations for actions to protect teachers’ rights and autonomy. After reading the report, in some cases the recommendations seemed vaguely vague initially, but in total, they were essentially a call for active teacher participation to consider the implications of the intersection of the technology (and the development IT) with educational institutions.
In a way, the report stressed that in hindsight, it was a disaster as existing educational technology has been woven into the structure of our institutions.
After reviewing the AAUP report, go to Matt Seybold’s, How Venture Capitalists Build a For-Profit “Micro-University” in our Public Flagship Store, published in his newsletter, American Vandal. It’s a long and complex story of the way external service providers conceived in venture capital/private equity, suggesting their own college in ways that undermine the role of teachers and the quality of education.
Justice is needed to do Seybold’s work, but I hope you can induce you to consider his full argument.
Seybold covers the lid here for these third-party provider products, which exist under a university brand “supported by” third-party providers:
“Driven by Model” is a truly ridiculous character reversal. A private, unaccredited company founded and operated by sales and marketing professionals is responsible for (pseudo-)educational courses, while accredited universities are used only for their sales and marketing functions and are compensated by commissions for students enrolled from their brand portals. College partners are motivated to leverage their brand capabilities and use their proprietary data, advertising budgets, and sales power to maximize the commission, while Ziplines provides Cookie-Cutter landing pages and highly repeatable mini rebuttals whose content is largely created by Gigworkers.
Here, Seybold points out the downstream effects of these “partners”.
Edtech is not only a Trojan horse, it can capture public resources by elites; it is also always a project that empowers public education programs.
The applicability of Seybold analysis to “AI partnership” should be clear.
As another thought experiment exercise, I suggest you how to deliver Gen Ed from CSU with AI via the work of Hollis Robbins on her anecdote website.
Robbins, a former university dean, may see it as a provocation rather than a viable suggestion, but as a proposal, it is a comprehensive vision to replace human labor with AI guidance, which relies on a series of intertwined technological applications where humans are “in a loop” but largely run automatically.
If realized, this vision will eliminate two aspects of academic freedom:
- The course will be organized and evaluated based on rigid standards and then mainly through AI.
- Teachers almost do not exist.
I read it as a surveillance-oriented dystopia, where I either had to opt out (if allowed), or more likely to escape, but you can check out the comments on the post itself and find some early enthusiasts. The complexity of the technology vision suggests that such a vision will be difficult to achieve, but the potential value of increased efficiency, cost reduction and standardization is consistent with the direction that has been around for decades in the education system.
It is indeed foreseeable that many factors that erode teacher rights and leave institutions vulnerable to attack. Auxiliary is at the top of my list.
We’ve seen this drama before in terms of technology and university. If teachers are not prepared to assert their rights and exercise their powers, then you will not write down my lament about tenure for years, because there are not enough teachers to worry about something like this.
