AI: a dystopian future for academic freedom?

Higher education is one of America’s most successful industries, serving 15 million students annually. Colleges and universities drive discovery and innovation, civilize young adults, and educate our future workforce. They are also shockingly expensive – you could buy a house or open a fast-food franchise for the cost of a four-year degree at a typical private college.

Generative AI offers the potential to reduce significantly the cost structure and raise the productivity of higher education. Unlike earlier tech innovations that failed to gain traction, such as educational television and massive open online courses (MOOCs), GenAI can be engaging and customized – like always having a personal tutor. GenAI trained on a corpus of elite scholars offers an unprecedented opportunity: individual tutorials with Michael Porter, Peter Drucker, or Aristotle.

But today’s authoritarian and anti-intellectual currents suggest a more dystopian possibility: “education” driven by a…