Greetings, All,

The onslaught of AI-related think pieces, research, reports, and commentary continues this week. The conversation remains intense.

The most talked about piece among those working in or otherwise connected to higher education is this from James Walsh in New York Magazine: “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College.” (Apologies for the paywall). This is another in a series of pieces that see student use of generative AI as a harbinger of death for higher education. There’s a truthiness to the piece that’s warrants attention: some students are sidestepping the work necessary to grow intellectually and as critical thinkers, and justifying it with alarming levels of certitude about their calculation; many faculty (in the humanities, especially) are at their wits end at being drawn increasingly into an adversarial and skeptical relationship with student work; and, perhaps most true of all, all of this is happening amidst an extended process of neoliberalization wherein higher education has become more costly, more competitive, and more characterized by transactional relationships.

Much is lost in this framing–especially this: most students want to learn! Dan Hassler-Forest of Utrecht University captured this in a thread he posted on Bluesky, writing: “DON’T PANIC: after a moment of deep depression, I realized that most students really can be persuaded to do work in good faith. Some will of course end up cheating, but this has always been the case and it always will be. So focus more on inspiring them and less on making courses “AI-proof.””

It’s difficult for teachers to find their way through all this in no small part because of the rhetoric ed tech companies deploy to attract interest and shape professional pedagogical cultures. Carlos Ortegón, Mathias Decuypere, and Ben Williamson have just published “‘Enthuse and Inspire’: Edtech Brokers and the Affective Construction of Teacher Innovation,” which examines the role of ed tech as purveyors of not just digital tools but also a specific interpretation of what it means to be a good and innovative educator.

Doug Belshaw, UK-based open educator, has been doing research on AI Literacy Frameworks, and has compiled and annotated 40 such projects. He writes up some observations on what makes a good framework here, noting that, while there’s a lot of overlap, they are highly contextual and should be responsive to the contexts in which they’re expected to have an impact. YMMV with frameworks as a starting point, but if it is your cup of tea Belshaw has offered a great place to start. This, from the Open University, is the best “critical” framework I’ve seen.

Ruha Benjamin gave the Tanner Lecture at Harvard on April 9, which was just posted to YouTube. Entitled “Imagining Beyond the Artificial Intelligentsia,” Benjamin traces the intellectual through-lines connecting the people, firms, and capital behind the recent trends and emergent rhetoric of AI, focusing on longtermerism and effective altruism, and placing recent attacks on the university within that philosophical context. She details what imaginaries are at work, which are being ignored or refused, ultimately asking who owns the future–and who should?

And, Emily Bender and Alex Hanna have been making the rounds ahead of next week’s release of their much-anticipated book, The AI Con. They joined Jeff Jarvis and Jason Howell on the AI Inside podcast. It’s a fascinating and entertaining conversation about their work, the rhetoric and reality around AI, it’s power and limitations, and what it all means for learning, knowledge, language, and cultural expression.

One intervention of note discussed in the AI Inside podcast is “Fairly Trained,” a non profit that certifies companies who train LLMs with the consent of those who’ve produced the training data. Consent is a foundational requirement for ethical approaches to working with AI, and it will be interesting to see where efforts like theirs lead.

Best,
Luke

Walsh, James D. “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College.” New York Magazine, May 7, 2025. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html.

Ortegón, Carlos, Mathias Decuypere, and Ben Williamson. 2025. “‘Enthuse and Inspire’: Edtech Brokers and the Affective Construction of Teacher Innovation.” International Studies in Sociology of Education, May, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2025.2501123.

Belshaw, Doug. “What Makes for a Good AI Literacy Framework?,” May 6, 2025. https://blog.weareopen.coop/what-makes-for-a-good-ai-literacy-framework-423c57f01e9a.

Open University Critical Framework: https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/learning-design/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/OU-Critical-AI-Literacy-framework-2025-external-sharing.pdf

Tanner Lecture One with Ruha Benjamin, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZseJigkUhuE.

AI Inside podcast. “Emily Bender & Alex Hanna: ‘The AI Con’ — Busting Big-Tech Hype, TESCREAL Terrors & Real-World Harms.” May 3, 2025. https://aiinside.show/episode/emily-bender-alex-hanna-the-ai-con-busting-big-tech-hype-tescreal-terrors-real-world-harms.

“Fairly Trained.” Accessed May 7, 2025. https://www.fairlytrained.org.

Greetings, All,

The onslaught of AI-related think pieces, research, reports, and commentary continues this week. The conversation remains intense.

The most talked about piece among those working in or otherwise connected to higher education is this from James Walsh in New York Magazine: “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College.” (Apologies for the paywall). This is another in a series of pieces that see student use of generative AI as a harbinger of death for higher education. There’s a truthiness to the piece that’s warrants attention: some students are sidestepping the work necessary to grow intellectually and as critical thinkers, and justifying it with alarming levels of certitude about their calculation; many faculty (in the humanities, especially) are at their wits end at being drawn increasingly into an adversarial and skeptical relationship with student work; and, perhaps most true of all, all of this is happening amidst an extended process of neoliberalization wherein higher education has become more costly, more competitive, and more characterized by transactional relationships.

Much is lost in this framing–especially this: most students want to learn! Dan Hassler-Forest of Utrecht University captured this in a thread he posted on Bluesky, writing: “DON’T PANIC: after a moment of deep depression, I realized that most students really can be persuaded to do work in good faith. Some will of course end up cheating, but this has always been the case and it always will be. So focus more on inspiring them and less on making courses “AI-proof.””

It’s difficult for teachers to find their way through all this in no small part because of the rhetoric ed tech companies deploy to attract interest and shape professional pedagogical cultures. Carlos Ortegón, Mathias Decuypere, and Ben Williamson have just published “‘Enthuse and Inspire’: Edtech Brokers and the Affective Construction of Teacher Innovation,” which examines the role of ed tech as purveyors of not just digital tools but also a specific interpretation of what it means to be a good and innovative educator.

Doug Belshaw, UK-based open educator, has been doing research on AI Literacy Frameworks, and has compiled and annotated 40 such projects. He writes up some observations on what makes a good framework here, noting that, while there’s a lot of overlap, they are highly contextual and should be responsive to the contexts in which they’re expected to have an impact. YMMV with frameworks as a starting point, but if it is your cup of tea Belshaw has offered a great place to start. This, from the Open University, is the best “critical” framework I’ve seen.

Ruha Benjamin gave the Tanner Lecture at Harvard on April 9, which was just posted to YouTube. Entitled “Imagining Beyond the Artificial Intelligentsia,” Benjamin traces the intellectual through-lines connecting the people, firms, and capital behind the recent trends and emergent rhetoric of AI, focusing on longtermerism and effective altruism, and placing recent attacks on the university within that philosophical context. She details what imaginaries are at work, which are being ignored or refused, ultimately asking who owns the future–and who should?

And, Emily Bender and Alex Hanna have been making the rounds ahead of next week’s release of their much-anticipated book, The AI Con. They joined Jeff Jarvis and Jason Howell on the AI Inside podcast. It’s a fascinating and entertaining conversation about their work, the rhetoric and reality around AI, it’s power and limitations, and what it all means for learning, knowledge, language, and cultural expression.

One intervention of note discussed in the AI Inside podcast is “Fairly Trained,” a non profit that certifies companies who train LLMs with the consent of those who’ve produced the training data. Consent is a foundational requirement for ethical approaches to working with AI, and it will be interesting to see where efforts like theirs lead.

Best,
Luke

Walsh, James D. “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College.” New York Magazine, May 7, 2025. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html.

Ortegón, Carlos, Mathias Decuypere, and Ben Williamson. 2025. “‘Enthuse and Inspire’: Edtech Brokers and the Affective Construction of Teacher Innovation.” International Studies in Sociology of Education, May, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2025.2501123.

Belshaw, Doug. “What Makes for a Good AI Literacy Framework?,” May 6, 2025. https://blog.weareopen.coop/what-makes-for-a-good-ai-literacy-framework-423c57f01e9a.

Open University Critical Framework: https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/learning-design/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/OU-Critical-AI-Literacy-framework-2025-external-sharing.pdf

Tanner Lecture One with Ruha Benjamin, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZseJigkUhuE.

AI Inside podcast. “Emily Bender & Alex Hanna: ‘The AI Con’ — Busting Big-Tech Hype, TESCREAL Terrors & Real-World Harms.” May 3, 2025. https://aiinside.show/episode/emily-bender-alex-hanna-the-ai-con-busting-big-tech-hype-tescreal-terrors-real-world-harms.

“Fairly Trained.” Accessed May 7, 2025. https://www.fairlytrained.org.