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Officials at the University of South Carolina have described the US$1.5 million (S$1.9 million) partnership it signed last summer with OpenAI as a path towards smarter research, better time management and around-the-clock learning support.
Undergrad Brooklyn Tyner sees it another way. “We’re not excited to see these advancements in AI if it means it’s going to pollute our environment, spread misinformation, track us and take our jobs,” says the 20-year-old, who calls OpenAI’s ChatGPT a “cheating machine”.
This spring, when the university organised its first “AI Day” to bring leaders in artificial intelligence from Microsoft and Gartner to campus, Ms Tyner set up a booth outside the event.
On a big whiteboard, she asked each passer-by whether he or she approved of the OpenAI partnership.
By a margin of nine-to-one, she says, those who stopped to cast their vote with a dry-erase marker said they did not. “The people who decide we’re going to give this much money to ChatGPT are not the people who interact with students every day,” she says.
OpenAI and rival Anthropic PBC have zeroed in on college campuses as a valuable source of future users, competing for market share through deals with schools and even paying student influencers to start campus clubs.
“We would be doing students a grave disservice if we weren’t actively seeking ways to responsibly integrate AI tools into our curriculum,” says Mr Jeff Stensland, a spokesman for the University of South Carolina. “Almost every industry will be impacted by this technology in some way, and employers are increasingly demanding a workforce that is proficient in using and understanding these tools.”
“People are losing the ability to critically think,” says Ms Cassidy Rexroad, a junior at the University of Indianapolis who organised a protest against her school’s AI Summit in April.
The event, which brought business leaders and policymakers to campus to talk about responsible AI, cost as much as US$199 to attend and took over the school’s fine arts centre for the day, leaving the wind ensemble without a hall for its dress rehearsal.
Demonstrations like Ms Rexroad’s – which drew about 100 people – have not yet reached the scale of recent campus protests over the war in Gaza, climate change and other issues. But sentiment around the technology has started to deteriorate among Gen Zers.
The unique threat AI poses to students’ education and their hopes of finding jobs after graduation has made universities an epicentre for anti-AI resistance.
“I think people assume we just want to get the degree and get out,” Ms Rexroad, 21, says. “Doing the work for yourself has value. Having the human connection has value.”
The brewing resentment on campuses is part of a wider public relations problem for the AI industry.
Rural communities seeking to block the construction of data centres have descended on town council meetings and proposed ballot measures. There have been protests at the headquarters of OpenAI, as well as two physical attacks on the residence of Mr Sam Altman, the company’s chief executive officer.
In the last few weeks, commencement speakers at the University of Central Florida and the University of Arizona sparked thunderous boos when they touted the transformative potential of AI during their addresses.
One student group founded before the rise of ChatGPT has taken up the anti-AI mantle.
The so-called Luddite Club, named after a 19th-century labour movement that saw textile workers destroy machinery they thought would displace them, was originally formed during Covid-19 lockdowns to encourage students to shun smartphones and other modern technology in favour of in-person interaction.
Now, with more than 30 chapters in the US, its meetings offer a whimsical outlet for a tech-weary generation that resents being forced to accept yet another paradigm shift they see as far more focused on private companies’ profit than on their well-being.
“AI gets people out on the street and out to the Luddite Clubs,” says Ms Jasper Dabbs, 21, an organiser for the Columbia University chapter.
She spoke outside the school’s imposing gates, where the Luddites and other student activists had gathered for an anti-AI demonstration. Riffing on classic folk songs with lines like “I’m gonna lay down my chatbot”, the students demanded that the university scrap its new AI degree programmes and cancel deals that granted premium access to ChatGPT and other AI models.
As universities rush to implement AI, they get some of the most heated pushback when they apply it to the arts. From image generators like OpenAI’s Dall-E to video tools like Alphabet’s Veo, the AI-generated content students refer to as “slop” feels like an existential threat to many who are pursuing a career in the arts, whether is graphic design, acting or cinematography.
Mr Graham Granger, a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, was arrested in January for ripping an MFA student’s AI-generated art exhibit off the wall and eating it.
“That’s what AI does to real art,” he says. “It chews it up and spits it out.” (Luckily the installation – a series of fake Polaroids intended to be an exploration of AI psychosis – was made of paper.)
He spent an afternoon in jail and was charged with criminal mischief, but the case was ultimately dropped.
At the elite Berklee College of Music in Boston, students have signed petitions and put up posters protesting an elective course called Bots And Beats, which teaches AI-generated music-making.
The class’s professor Ben Camp is an adviser for the AI music start-up Suno, according to its LinkedIn profile. Dr Camp did not respond to a request for comment.
“If most students don’t want to use generative AI, then Berklee shouldn’t represent generative AI,” says junior Dan Sienko, adding that they believe generative AI violates the school’s own anti-plagiarism policies.
In response to students’ concerns, Berklee set up a town hall in April with Mr Rodney Alejandro, a music industry veteran and dean of the professional writing and music technology department. But students say they were prevented from speaking for more than a minute at a time until a professor raised his hand to object.
“I don’t feel that they’re truly interested in hearing us out,” says Ms Andrea Recalde, a senior. “It’s like talking to a wall.”
Mr Alejandro says the songwriting department created the class in response to demand from students and that he considers it a fulfilment of Berklee’s obligation to prepare them for the real world. “We’re pro-artists,” he says. “We want to make sure students are equipped with the best skillset to navigate their careers.”
Yet many students share the feeling that universities are denying them a say in the future of their own education – and worry their schools’ AI policies are already coming with very real trade-offs.
Grand Valley State University in Michigan announced in February that it would issue US$139 million in bonds to fund a technology hub in downtown Grand Rapids. The next month, the university slashed retirement healthcare benefits for professors and laid off staff from its art museum and tutoring centre.
The school, which did not reply to a request for comment, has not connected the two events, but students say they appear related.
With help from their professor, one environmental science class staged a walkout to protest the school’s AI policies and their impact on the environment.
Ms Lindsay Stankus, one of the organisers, says one particular moment crystallised her opposition: when her photography professor asked the class to use AI to generate an image of what Earth would look like after humans.
With fears mounting that the enormous amounts of energy demanded by AI infrastructure could hasten the planet’s descent into climate disaster, the assignment hit a little too close to home. “I refused to do it,” she says.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...sparks-pushback-protests-booing-at-graduation
Undergrad Brooklyn Tyner sees it another way. “We’re not excited to see these advancements in AI if it means it’s going to pollute our environment, spread misinformation, track us and take our jobs,” says the 20-year-old, who calls OpenAI’s ChatGPT a “cheating machine”.
This spring, when the university organised its first “AI Day” to bring leaders in artificial intelligence from Microsoft and Gartner to campus, Ms Tyner set up a booth outside the event.
On a big whiteboard, she asked each passer-by whether he or she approved of the OpenAI partnership.
By a margin of nine-to-one, she says, those who stopped to cast their vote with a dry-erase marker said they did not. “The people who decide we’re going to give this much money to ChatGPT are not the people who interact with students every day,” she says.
OpenAI and rival Anthropic PBC have zeroed in on college campuses as a valuable source of future users, competing for market share through deals with schools and even paying student influencers to start campus clubs.
“We would be doing students a grave disservice if we weren’t actively seeking ways to responsibly integrate AI tools into our curriculum,” says Mr Jeff Stensland, a spokesman for the University of South Carolina. “Almost every industry will be impacted by this technology in some way, and employers are increasingly demanding a workforce that is proficient in using and understanding these tools.”
Resistance from students
But the changes are triggering a backlash among students concerned about the emerging technology’s effects on both their education and society writ large, prompting anti-AI marches, op-eds, petitions, new clubs and performance art on campuses across the country.“People are losing the ability to critically think,” says Ms Cassidy Rexroad, a junior at the University of Indianapolis who organised a protest against her school’s AI Summit in April.
The event, which brought business leaders and policymakers to campus to talk about responsible AI, cost as much as US$199 to attend and took over the school’s fine arts centre for the day, leaving the wind ensemble without a hall for its dress rehearsal.
Demonstrations like Ms Rexroad’s – which drew about 100 people – have not yet reached the scale of recent campus protests over the war in Gaza, climate change and other issues. But sentiment around the technology has started to deteriorate among Gen Zers.
The unique threat AI poses to students’ education and their hopes of finding jobs after graduation has made universities an epicentre for anti-AI resistance.
“I think people assume we just want to get the degree and get out,” Ms Rexroad, 21, says. “Doing the work for yourself has value. Having the human connection has value.”
The brewing resentment on campuses is part of a wider public relations problem for the AI industry.
Rural communities seeking to block the construction of data centres have descended on town council meetings and proposed ballot measures. There have been protests at the headquarters of OpenAI, as well as two physical attacks on the residence of Mr Sam Altman, the company’s chief executive officer.
In the last few weeks, commencement speakers at the University of Central Florida and the University of Arizona sparked thunderous boos when they touted the transformative potential of AI during their addresses.
One student group founded before the rise of ChatGPT has taken up the anti-AI mantle.
The so-called Luddite Club, named after a 19th-century labour movement that saw textile workers destroy machinery they thought would displace them, was originally formed during Covid-19 lockdowns to encourage students to shun smartphones and other modern technology in favour of in-person interaction.
Now, with more than 30 chapters in the US, its meetings offer a whimsical outlet for a tech-weary generation that resents being forced to accept yet another paradigm shift they see as far more focused on private companies’ profit than on their well-being.
“AI gets people out on the street and out to the Luddite Clubs,” says Ms Jasper Dabbs, 21, an organiser for the Columbia University chapter.
She spoke outside the school’s imposing gates, where the Luddites and other student activists had gathered for an anti-AI demonstration. Riffing on classic folk songs with lines like “I’m gonna lay down my chatbot”, the students demanded that the university scrap its new AI degree programmes and cancel deals that granted premium access to ChatGPT and other AI models.
Mounting fears over the future
Asked for comment about the AI pushback, Ms Samantha Slater, a spokesperson for Columbia University, wrote in an e-mail that the school “welcomes students expressing a wide range of views on artificial intelligence. We are preparing students not only to develop and deploy AI technologies, but also to critically examine their societal implications and help shape their responsible governance and use”.As universities rush to implement AI, they get some of the most heated pushback when they apply it to the arts. From image generators like OpenAI’s Dall-E to video tools like Alphabet’s Veo, the AI-generated content students refer to as “slop” feels like an existential threat to many who are pursuing a career in the arts, whether is graphic design, acting or cinematography.
Mr Graham Granger, a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, was arrested in January for ripping an MFA student’s AI-generated art exhibit off the wall and eating it.
“That’s what AI does to real art,” he says. “It chews it up and spits it out.” (Luckily the installation – a series of fake Polaroids intended to be an exploration of AI psychosis – was made of paper.)
He spent an afternoon in jail and was charged with criminal mischief, but the case was ultimately dropped.
At the elite Berklee College of Music in Boston, students have signed petitions and put up posters protesting an elective course called Bots And Beats, which teaches AI-generated music-making.
The class’s professor Ben Camp is an adviser for the AI music start-up Suno, according to its LinkedIn profile. Dr Camp did not respond to a request for comment.
“If most students don’t want to use generative AI, then Berklee shouldn’t represent generative AI,” says junior Dan Sienko, adding that they believe generative AI violates the school’s own anti-plagiarism policies.
In response to students’ concerns, Berklee set up a town hall in April with Mr Rodney Alejandro, a music industry veteran and dean of the professional writing and music technology department. But students say they were prevented from speaking for more than a minute at a time until a professor raised his hand to object.
“I don’t feel that they’re truly interested in hearing us out,” says Ms Andrea Recalde, a senior. “It’s like talking to a wall.”
Mr Alejandro says the songwriting department created the class in response to demand from students and that he considers it a fulfilment of Berklee’s obligation to prepare them for the real world. “We’re pro-artists,” he says. “We want to make sure students are equipped with the best skillset to navigate their careers.”
Yet many students share the feeling that universities are denying them a say in the future of their own education – and worry their schools’ AI policies are already coming with very real trade-offs.
Grand Valley State University in Michigan announced in February that it would issue US$139 million in bonds to fund a technology hub in downtown Grand Rapids. The next month, the university slashed retirement healthcare benefits for professors and laid off staff from its art museum and tutoring centre.
The school, which did not reply to a request for comment, has not connected the two events, but students say they appear related.
With help from their professor, one environmental science class staged a walkout to protest the school’s AI policies and their impact on the environment.
Ms Lindsay Stankus, one of the organisers, says one particular moment crystallised her opposition: when her photography professor asked the class to use AI to generate an image of what Earth would look like after humans.
With fears mounting that the enormous amounts of energy demanded by AI infrastructure could hasten the planet’s descent into climate disaster, the assignment hit a little too close to home. “I refused to do it,” she says.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...sparks-pushback-protests-booing-at-graduation
