A few weeks ago, I wrote to the editors of this masthead warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) to universities.
It was the culmination of an irksome morning during which I felt confronted by one technological excess after another. On the bus, I tried to read an assigned text about ‘cyborgs’ — a concept envisioned by Edgar Allan Poe in The Man That Was Used Up, a satirical piece about a general whose mutilated body parts were replaced with prosthetics. The reading quoted an academic of ‘techno-feminism’ who declared she would choose to be “an impure ‘cyborg’ — a cybernetic organism, such as an animal with a human-made implant — rather than a pure, eco-feminist ‘goddess’.”
Such a proud embrace of what I found dystopian and un-human piqued me enough that I just stopped reading. I could have instead perused the ChatGPT-generated summary which was linked on the reading list, likewise to me a gloomy prospect.
As I sat outside the classroom, I looked around at a crowd staring down at their phones, most of them in dead silence as if no one else was around. There were probably about a dozen people in this eerie picture. Such a scene always inspires me to put mine down.
Then came the class itself. Many of the students in my class are international students with low English proficiency, and so they struggle. Of course, the exorbitant amounts they pay to attend Australian universities are a financial boon to the sector, not to mention the accommodation providers that feed lavishly off their need for housing.
I watched as the student next to me took a prompt from the class page, inserted it into a translator, and then once again took the original English prompt and inserted it into DeepSeek.
That is what inspired my letter. However, if you think the only students who turn to artificial intelligence are those with limited English skills — set up for failure by being allowed to pay dearly to attend an institution at which they have little hope of truly learning — think again. The week before, I had watched an education major with no language difficulty do the same.
Worse still, some academics are abetting it. French students in FRNC3002 last semester were instructed to use artificial intelligence, the cowardly justification being that this will prevent some students from gaining an advantage by using it. This caused confusion for one mature student who had a lesser grasp of the technology, and resulted in another student losing twenty percent because they refused to delegate their work.
Never has there been a more succinct example of futility than for one to go to university, only to then delegate one’s learning to a machine. Never in the field of education was so much paid by so many to learn so little.
I am not the alarmist type, sufficiently so that I will eagerly caution you about exaggerated or incorrect claims, and the importance of maintaining proportionality. But this, the sceptre of a self-refining technology that mimics intelligence to the extent of discouraging one to exert true mental capacity, is a menace to academia, and to this university which I love.
Unfortunately, the University of Sydney has not portrayed a firm resolve on this matter, with the declarations about usage suddenly required on many assignments embodying a kind of acquiescence. Further, the University recently posted on its Instagram page a guide to understanding AI, titled 7 things it can do for you.
Its author, Associate Professor Sandra Peter, imagines how we may interact with AI going forward. Her musings are listed in a disturbing crescendo.
“I do think all of us will have a relationship with AI, whether that will be building it, working alongside it, working for it, thinking about how to govern it, even befriending it, maybe marrying it,” Peter writes.
Professor, please tell me you’re having us on! It is too much. I cannot take it.
In terms of what has been implemented so far, the administration has failed, opting for a dangerous appeasement. However, I am told by Students’ Representative Council (SRC) President Angus Fisher that changes are coming next semester, which will see new kinds of assessments, including assessment by conversation. In any case, the rest of the community is not to be let off the hook.
This should be the issue that matters above all else at our university. The University itself, the SRC, this newspaper, every academic society, and every concerned individual should be unequivocally opposed to the ongoing invasion of academia by artificial intelligence, which has had extremely damaging effects already. As I wrote in my letter, where artificial intelligence has infiltrated, the standard of education is now non-existent. It will not get better without real action.
There is a tangible anger simmering below the surface among students, particularly those studying in the Arts. I witnessed a student tell a lecturer she “would be ready to hunt you for sport” when the latter hypothesised about using artificial intelligence in writing assignment feedback — something which time-constrained academics were doing in 2023.
The intrusion of artificial intelligence into our studies violates every principle of a liberal university education, including critical thinking and intellectual pluralism, because the application of these principles requires using one’s brain. Services such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek offer you a way out of this, and a way out of being a fully-formed human being and citizen.
After I wrote my letter, I wrote another email to the University’s Office of Educational Integrity, likewise pleading for them to take the threat seriously. I’ve received no response yet.
I accept that artificial intelligence can do good in some settings. It has been shown that it can play a positive role in medical innovation. But, it must never be allowed to replace our creative and intellectual processes, functions that technology will always be ill-suited to.
Responsibility calls on us, as scholars and citizens, to sensibly deal with the dangers. Universities must institute real standards and strict red lines, broadly declaring artificial intelligence off-limits for assignments and classwork. Governments must step in with regulation that recognises the highly disruptive power of artificial intelligence. As importantly, as individuals, we must show discipline, and proudly declare that to fail is better than to cheat.
Please write to relevant parties, whether they be the Office of Educational Integrity, your own professors, ministers, shadow ministers or your local member of parliament. Please talk to these parties in person where you get the chance and consider scheduling meetings.
And, if you ever feel tempted to take the easy way out, ask yourself what you hope to get from a university education.
