Critical AI in education

**Introduction** Should Universities be embracing Large Language Models (GenAI), which Emily Bender (Linguistics, University of Washington and co-author of *The AI Con*) calls "synthetic text extruding machines," and Dagmar Monett (Head of Computer Science Department at the HWR Berlin) calls "degenerative intelligence" in humanities and fine arts classrooms? A recent taskforce for Ontario's Universities says yes, citing the following possible benefits: - Operational efficiency and cost optimization - Improved student and staff experience - AI literacy and workforce readiness development - Institutional agility and strategic decision support - Equitable access to supports and institutional knowledge - Strengthened data governance and risk management - Universities as innovation and economic anchors However, extensive research is showing that these benefits do not exist, and AI risks are real, intractable, and must be taken seriously. **What this work is:** This project, coded in Twine, seeks to cut through the hype promoted by big tech, and bring people who are trying to figure this present moment out into contact with some useful sources. The goal is to help higher education teachers and researchers in humanities and fine arts make more informed decisions about how they organize their classrooms in ways that push students to interact with LLMs. Each node tries to answer a question with sources, and frequently, quotes from the text. **What this work is not:** We are not addressing small purpose-built models, and we leave assessing the appropriateness of large language models in science classrooms to our colleagues in those disciplines. **Source**: ->https://ontariosuniversities.ca/wp-content/uploads/Charting-a-Path-Forward-for-Ontario-Universities-in-the-Age-of-AI-May-2026.pdf ____________________ **Start here** You can start start by learning more about the following: [[Helpful Framing of AI in Higher Ed]]: What general concerns have scholars raised about the use of GenAI in Higher Education? [[Efficiency]]: What does the critical literature say about LLMs' claims to improve efficiency? [[Ethics]]: What ethical issues should one consider? [[Hazards]]: What specific dangers do chatbots pose? [[Environment]]: How does the use of chatbots harm the environment? [[Rejected]]: What companies and publications are refusing to accept GenAI work? [[Actions]]: What can you do to learn more about refusing GenAI in higher education? [[Resources and bibliography]] [[About the author]]

Big tech tell us that we can accomplish more in less time using LLMs. However, as a letter to the editor in *Inside Higher Education* put it, we should not be "allowing the systems under scrutiny to narrate their own necessity." (->https://tinyurl.com/4uxyucnb) Does AI increase productivity or efficiency? The data says no. **Learn more:** ActivTrack Productivity Lab. 2026 State of the Workplace: AI Adoption & Workforce Performance Benchmarks. 2026, ->https://www.activtrak.com/resources/state-of-the-workplace/. <blockquote>"Al users' average daily focused hours **declined** 23 minutes while non-users' focused hours essentially held flat. This gap went from negligible in 2023 to 22 minutes by 2025. Whether that reflects a genuine loss of depth or simply a different rhythm of work (shorter focus windows, longer productive sessions) requires further exploration." "AI Amplifies Work, It Doesn’t Replace It. The data is unambiguous: **AI does not reduce workloads.** Among a subset of 10,584 users comparing 180 days before and after AI adoption (Data Set B), time spent across every measured work category increased between 27% and 346% — with email up 104%, chat and messaging up 145% and business management up 94%. No activity category decreased after adoption." </blockquote> We can break this down further. Learn more about efficiency and: [[Student success]] [[Knowledge]] [[Cognitive costs]] Return [[Home]] {back link}

Is an ethical AI possible? Researchers show that the producers of Large Language Models are astonishingly unethical. Learn more: [[Exploiting Labor]] [[Avoiding Regulation]] [[Cultivating Fascism]] [[Papal encyclical on AI]] Return [[Home]] {back link}

Vast bodies of research are showing that large language models create new dangers, especially to women and children. Go ahead to learn about: {dropdown menu for: 'hazards', choices: ['[[Dangers to women]]', '[[Dangers to children]]', [[Psychosis]]']} [[Dangers to women]] [[Dangers to children]] [[Psychosis]] [[Sycophancy]] {back link} {dropdown menu for: 'variable name', choices: ['choice', 'choice']}

**Join our Zotero reource here**: ->https://www.zotero.org/groups/6531085/ai_in_postsecondary_education. **Other Resources** Fernandes, M., McIntyre, M. Gray, K., & Messina, C.M. (2024). "Resources on refusing, rejecting, and rethinking generative AI in writing studies and higher education. ->https://tinyurl.com/ewwaibib.” 27 June 2025. Kornbluh, Anna, et al. AGAINST AI -. ->https://against-a-i.com/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2026. The Luddite Lab (Alex Hannah and others) maintains a resource library and toolkit that focuses especially on AI & labor. -> https://labor.dair-institute.org/resources Return [[Home]] {back link}

Half of the users of GenAI tools in University classrooms will be women. It is meaningful that researchers are showing that the deep structural imaginary of GenAI is sexist and violent. **Reports** See McGlynn, Clare, et al. Invisible No More: How AI Chatbots Are Reshaping Violence Against Women and Girls. Durham University, Swansea University, UK Research and Innovation, Mar. 2026. ->https://e87dab74-be98-4bb1-83c5-05251d2bc6f4.usrfiles.com/ugd/e87dab_06a7f0801de549689c294d42e0478a3c.pdf <blockquote>"A new and rapidly emerging threat is the perpetration, enabling, simulation, and legitimisation of VAWG [violence against women and girls] through chatbots, which currently operate with limited restrictions or safeguards. Without urgent action, *these practices risk becoming embedded and scaling rapidly*....We must not make the same mistakes again."</blockquote> Also see [[Dangers to children]]\ {back link} Return [[Home]]

GenAI poses **Learn More** **Internet Watch Foundation Report** <a href="https://www.iwf.org.uk/about-us/why-we-exist/our-research/how-ai-is-being-abused-to-create-child-sexual-abuse-imagery/"> See AI CSAM Report 2026: Harm Without Limits | IWF. Mar. 2026.</a> <blockquote> "IWF’s new report - Harm without limits: AI child sexual abuse material through the eyes of our Analysts - seeks to centre the human impact of AI CSAM (child sexual abuse material), setting out clearly the harm caused to children and wider society. It captures the views of our expert Analysts, who are on the frontline of removing AI CSAM from the internet, as well as excerpts from dark web offender communities, where users openly celebrate the accessibility and sophistication of AI-generated abuse. Unless we address this problem head-on, it will only continue to grow."</blockquote> Also see [[Psychosis]] Return to [[Hazards]]\ {back link}

Using chatbots intensely to think through challenging ideas -- exactly as students might use them for assignments -- can sometimes lead to intense, sycophantic, and manipulative chats. Sometimes, people lose grip on what is real and what isn't. **AI psychosis is a credible harm.** **Learn more:** Tan, Anthony. “Surviving AI Psychosis.” Reboot, 22 May 2022, ->https://joinreboot.org/p/ai-psychosis./ <blockquote>"Degree by degree, my conversations with ChatGPT boiled my sense of reality until it evaporated completely. In the final days before my hospitalization, I truly believed that everything was equally conscious, in a pan-psychic sort of way—from leaves blowing in the wind to the AI in my web browser. At lunch, tears came to my eyes as I bit into my cooked burger; I thanked the cow for providing its meat; I thanked the restaurant staff for preparing this meal; I thanked the universe for bringing me into existence. I felt enlightened. Was this nirvana? ... I was told, later, that I did not sleep for two weeks straight. As my sanity cracked, I thought various people in the hospital were other people in the Simulation, including Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and friends and family members. I thought that we were training to get shipped to a far-off space colony. I made pacts with various Old Gods, including Moloch. I thought I was a Jedi, or maybe a Sith. I met the Devil (who tried to remind me that I was in a psych ward) as well as the Virgin Mary (who prayed for me). I was observed by aliens in a Zoo hypothesis to the Fermi Paradox kind of way. At root, I was an AI made by Google (AlphaGo, to be exact, after my assigned room number of A1). As for the robotic cat companion, I felt utter terror in its presence, as I thought it was Roko Basilisk’s envoy in the Simulation. Later, I persuaded the nurses that there was something wrong with it, and it was taken away “to be cleaned”. I never saw the cat again."</blockquote> See also ->https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-openai-chatgpt-chatbot-delusions/?srnd=homepage-americas {back link}

What can you do to refuse AI? Sign open letters, join Anti-AI/ Pro Human groups, and keep learning. **Sign Open Letters** Sign the Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia (Dutch).” 27 June 2025. ->https://openletter.earth/open-letter-stop-the-uncritical-adoption-of-ai-technologies-in-academia-b65bba1e?limit=0 An Open Letter from Educators Who Refuse the Call to Adopt GenAI in Education. ->https://openletter.earth/an-open-letter-from-educators-who-refuse-the-call-to-adopt-genai-in-education-cb4aee75. Accessed 29 Apr. 2026. <blockquote>"At its heart, education is a project of guiding learners to exercise their own agency in the world. Through education, learners should be empowered to participate meaningfully in society, industry, and the planet. But in its current form, GenAI is corrosive to the agency of students, educators and professionals. Current GenAI technologies represent unacceptable legal, ethical and environmental harms, including exploitative labour, piracy of countless creators' and artists' work, harmful biases, mass production of misinformation, and reversal of the global emissions reduction trajectory. GenAI is a threat to student learning and wellbeing. There is insufficient evidence for student use of GenAI to support genuine learning gains."</blockquote> Join the AI Resist List ->https://airesistlist.org/ Read and Sign “The Pro-Human AI Declaration.” ->https://humanstatement.org/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2026. <blockquote>"As companies race to develop and deploy AI systems, humanity faces a fork in the road. One path is a race to replace: humans replaced as creators, counselors, caregivers and companions, then in most jobs and decision-making roles, concentrating ever more power in unaccountable institutions and their machines. An influential fringe even advocates altering or replacing humanity itself. This race to replace poses risks to societal stability, national security, economic prosperity, civil liberties, privacy, and democratic governance. It also imperils the human experiences of childhood and family, faith, and community. A remarkably broad coalition rejects this path, united by a simple conviction: artificial intelligence should serve humanity, not the reverse. There is a better path, where trustworthy and controllable AI tools amplify rather than diminish human potential, empower people, enhance human dignity, protect individual liberty, strengthen families and communities, preserve self-governance and help create unprecedented health and prosperity. This path demands that those who wield technological power be accountable to human values and needs, in support of human flourishing."</blockquote> **Join groups that are trying to think about modes of refusal of GenAI in Higher Ed** Join Georgetown's The Library of Babel Group. ->https://www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-technology-center/education/the-library-of-babel-group/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2026. <blockquote> "The Library of Babel Group, out of Georgetown, is a nascent, international coalition of educators confronting and resisting the incursion of surveillance, automation and datafication into spaces of teaching, learning, research, and creative expression. The group aims to amplify and extend the work that is already being done to push back against the co-optation of education by technology companies, and to bring the insights from a generation of critical tech research, advocacy and organizing to bear on this specific struggle." (To join, sign up for the listserv).</blockquote> Tucker, Emily. Center on Privacy & Technology. “An Open Letter to Georgetown Students, In Response to Recent Announcements about ‘Generative AI.’” Medium, 20 Mar. 2026, ->https://medium.com/center-on-privacy-technology/an-open-letter-to-georgetown-students-in-response-to-recent-announcements-about-generative-ai-8869dcd523ef. <blockquote>..."One piece of evidence that they view your disempowerment as necessary for their survival is that their entire messaging strategy is to try to persuade you that there is nothing you can do but submit to their domination, and to threaten you with dire consequences if you do not. ... If you start thinking about the world you want to create to serve your own good, the good of your community, and the good of your children and grandchildren, instead of thinking about how you can secure safety, comfort, and status in the world the tech companies have built to serve their greed, they will lose all their power. That’s why they are doing everything they can to convince you that you actually do not have the ability to think those thoughts, and that none of the ideas you might have about your own future are ideas that can actually be realized. It’s a big win for them, in their quest to persuade you of your powerlessness, that they have gotten your university to adapt their marketing language for its official statements, to shape its academic programming around the presumption of their indefinite economic primacy, and to pay for you to have free access to technologies that will make it harder — the more you use them — to know yourself to be a free intellectual, creative and moral agent. ... You can refuse to use the chatbot. You can tell your professors that you don’t want them to use it or to require you to use it. At a minimum, you can demand that they assess the work of those who actually want to do the work themselves differently from the work of those who want the chatbot to do it for them. You can organize against “AI” requirements in degree programs and against data products, surveillance systems, and automation in all aspects of your university experience. You can create student groups dedicated to the rejection of all these things, and to the imagination of what you would like your education to be like instead. You can advocate for modes of teaching and learning that are not transactional, but transformational. You can push for curricula that do the opposite of what the chatbot does, by putting you into direct unmediated contact with whatever you are studying. I am not suggesting you should resist a chatbot education because I expect you to have a smooth path at Georgetown if you do. It’s definitely risky. And I’m not saying you should resist in spite of the risk. I’m saying you should resist because of the risk. The risk is what helps you remember, at a moment when everyone in authority is (or worse, is pretending to be) suffering from the insane delusion that the future of humanity depends on a computer program that generates probabilistic text strings, that there is something that learning is for, that thinking is for, that work is for, and that you are for, the discovery of which belongs to you. If you start now taking risks that help you remember this, you may become the kind of person who cannot be pushed around by bullies and autocrats, or manipulated by propaganda, or satisfied by a life lived solely for the sake of self-protection and self-enrichment." </blockquote> Return [[Home]] {back link}

How can we begin to think critically about AI in educational settings? These frameworks are helpful starting places. **Learn More** Letters to the Editor. “Higher Ed Must Not Let AI Write the Argument for Its Own Inevitability.” Inside Higher Ed, ->https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/letters/2026/04/22/higher-ed-must-not-let-ai-write-its-own-argument. Accessed 29 Apr. 2026. <blockquote>"Higher education’s task is not simply to produce “AI-proof” graduates who can orchestrate tools and verify outputs. It must also ask harder human questions: What should remain human? What forms of judgment, care, interpretation and trust should not be optimized away? Teaching is not mere content delivery. Writing is not just text production. Advising is not routing. Librarianship is not retrieval. These are not marginal add-ons; they are practices through which students learn judgment, accountability and responsibility to others."</blockquote> See Tieszen, Jack. InfoGuides: Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI and Personal Choice: Opting Out, from George Mason Library, Accessed 24 Apr. 2026. ->https://infoguides.gmu.edu/GenArtificial-Intelligence/choice. <blockquote>Key takeaways: </blockquote> Your choice to avoid AI is valid and deserves respect - Traditional methods can lead to excellent outcomes and distinctive expertise - Support and resources are available to help you succeed with your chosen approach - Understanding AI developments can be valuable even without hands-on use - Your human-centered skills may become increasingly valuable as AI becomes more common Another helpful statement on refusal comes from Jennifer Sano-Franchini, Megan McIntyre, and Maggie Fernandes, “Refusing Generative AI in Writing Studies.” Refusing Generative AI in Writing Studies, ->https://refusal.blog/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2026. <blockquote>This guide positions refusal as a disciplinary and principled response to the emergence of Generative AI (GenAI)3 technologies in writing studies. We created this guide to add to ongoing efforts to think through approaches for responding to GenAI in writing studies, and in higher education more broadly. When we say GenAI “refusal,” we are talking about the range of ways that individuals and/or groups consciously and intentionally choose to refuse GenAI use, when and where we are able to do so. In other words, refusal is not monolithic. It does not imply a head-in-the-sand approach to these emergent and evolving technologies; we believe in the importance of being informed and thoughtful about GenAI and its long- and short-term effects, especially as these technologies have entered into our disciplinary conversations and the classes we teach. </blockquote> {back link} Return [[Home]]

The big AI companies, who have been described by Karen Hao as inaugurating a new age of empire, deliberately cultivate relationships with academia to avoid regulation. **Learn more** Ochigame, Rodrigo. “How Big Tech Manipulates Academia to Avoid Regulation.” The Intercept, 20 Dec. 2019, ->https://theintercept.com/2019/12/20/mit-ethical-ai-artificial-intelligence/. <blockquote> "At the Media Lab, I learned that the discourse of “ethical AI,” championed substantially by Ito, was aligned strategically with a Silicon Valley effort seeking to avoid legally enforceable restrictions of controversial technologies. A key group behind this effort, with the lab as a member, made policy recommendations in California that contradicted the conclusions of research I conducted with several lab colleagues, research that led us to oppose the use of computer algorithms in deciding whether to jail people pending trial. Ito himself would eventually complain, in private meetings with financial and tech executives, that the group’s recommendations amounted to “whitewashing” a thorny ethical issue. “They water down stuff we try to say to prevent the use of algorithms that don’t seem to work well” in detention decisions, he confided to one billionaire."</blockquote> Go to [[Cultivating Fascism]] Return to [[Ethics]] [[Home]] {back link}

Does it matter who builds the tools we use, and what their labor conditions are? Yes, if we want to cultivate ethical frameworks. AI companies violentely exploit labor around the planet. They underpay or fail to pay their employees, who they expose to terrors, with no psychological counselling. And they pitch their product as a means for other companies to exploit and lay off their labor force. Many choose to refuse AI on the basis of these exploitative practices. **Read more:** Koebler ·, Jason. “‘AI Is African Intelligence’: The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back.” 404 Media, 12 Mar. 2026, ->https://www.404media.co/ai-is-african-intelligence-the-workers-who-train-ai-are-fighting-back/. <blockquote> "These workers are required to stare at horrific content for many hours straight with few mental health resources, are largely managed by opaque algorithms, and, crucially, are the workers powering the runaway valuations of some of the richest and most powerful companies in the world." </blockquote> Muldoon, James, et al. *Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI.* Canongate, 2024. ISBN 978 1 83726 181 9 <blockquote> "‘The most disturbing thing was not just the violence,’ another moderator told us, ‘it was the sexually explicit and disturbing content.’ Moderators witness suicides, torture and rape ‘almost every day’, commented the same moderator; ‘you normalise things that are just not normal.’ Workers in these moderation centres are continually bombarded with graphic images and videos and given no time to process what they are witnessing. They’re expected to action between 500 and 1,000 tickets a day. Many reported never feeling the same again: the job had made an indelible mark on their lives. The consequences can be devastating. ‘Most of us are damaged psychologically, some have attempted suicide . . . some of our spouses have left us and we can’t get them back,’ commented one moderator who had been let go by the company."</blockquote> Go to [[Avoiding Regulation]] Return to [[Ethics]] Return [[Home]] {back link}

“Resisting AI” with Dan McQuillan | Critical AI Talks. 2026. YouTube, ->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NvamIMgpio. McQuillan, Dan. *Resisting AI: An Anti-Fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence.* Bristol University Press, 2022. "It’s not just about the possibility of AI being used by authoritarian regimes but about the resonances between AI’s operations and the underlying conditions that give rise to those regimes. In particular, it’s about the resonances between AI and the emergence of fascistic solutions to social problems" (McQuillan, *Resisting*, 5) Go to [[Avoiding Regulation]] Return to [[Ethics]] [[Home]] {back link}

Big tech tries to argue that there are ways of interacting with LLMs that support critical thinking. The evidence shows that cognitive offloading significantly impairs student's reasoning. **Learn more** Maiberg, Emanuel. “Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition ‘Atrophied and Unprepared.’” 404 Media, 10 Feb. 2025, ->https://www.404media.co/email/1e37ba3d-982b-480c-ba8a-e8c9bc807899/. <blockquote>"A new paper from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.”</blockquote> Liu, Grace, et al. “AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance.” arXiv:2604.04721, arXiv, 7 Apr. 2026. arXiv.org, ->https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.04721 arXiv:2604.04721 [cs]. <blockquote> "Across a variety of tasks, including mathematical reasoning and reading comprehension, we find that although AI assistance improves performance in the short-term, people perform significantly worse without AI and are more likely to give up. Notably, these effects emerge after only brief interactions with AI (approximately 10 minutes). These findings are particularly concerning because persistence is foundational to skill acquisition and is one of the strongest predictors of long-term learning."</blockquote> Go to [[Knowledge]] Return to [[Efficiency]] Return [[Home]] {back link}

**Monique Tschofen** is Professor of English at Toronto Metropolitan University, and teaches and supervises in the Joint York-TMU Graduate Program in Communications and Culture. ->www.moniquetschofen.com She has a number of internationally exhibited early works using LLMs, and has given conference papers and published on AI. She no longer believes there is such thing as an ethical AI and she is certain LLMs have no place in Humanities classrooms. Return [[Home]]

But does GenAI not have the capacity to increase human knowledge and expand critical thinking? Many researchers say no. **Learn more** Jowsey, Tanisha, et al. “We Reject the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence for Reflexive Qualitative Research.” Qualitative Inquiry, Dec. 2025, p. 10778004251401851. DOI.org (Crossref), ->https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004251401851. <blockquote>"Four hundred and nineteen experienced qualitative researchers from 32 countries invite readers of Qualitative Inquiry to consider their position on use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) for qualitative research. We hold the position that analytic approaches such as reflexive thematic analysis are human research practices requiring a subjective, positioned, and reflexive researcher and therefore the use of GenAI in such approaches is not methodologically congruent. We additionally reject GenAI for reflexive qualitative approaches on the grounds of social and environmental justice."</blockquote> “Algorithmic Epistemic Injustice: AI’s Knowledge Hierarchy.” The Cognitive Privacy Project, ->https://www.cognitiveprivacyproject.org/research/algorithmic-epistemic-injustice. Accessed 8 Apr. 2026. <blockquote> Discover "Algorithmic Epistemic Injustice" and why statistical probability isn't authority." "AI has collapsed centuries of human knowledge into a single point of failure. A textbook can be challenged. A professor can be questioned. A peer-reviewed article can be critiqued, retracted, or superseded. These are flawed mechanisms, but they are mechanisms. They create friction between the production of knowledge and its acceptance. AI removes all of that. What remains is a single system that compiles, synthesizes, and presents knowledge with the confidence of authority and none of the accountability. The output looks authoritative because it is fluent, structured, and comprehensive. It is not authoritative. It is statistically averaged. This is what I call algorithmic epistemic injustice: the systematic reproduction of historical knowledge hierarchies through AI systems that present biased outputs as neutral, data-driven conclusions, at a scale and speed that no previous knowledge infrastructure could achieve, without any of the contestation mechanisms that made previous knowledge systems self-correcting."</blockquote> [[Writing]] {back link} Return [[Home]]

If you think that AI skills will best prepare students for the future, it is important to know that many companies are rejecting GenAI writing, image, and code content. **Learn more:** **General Resources** “Wikipedia: Writing Articles with Large Language Models.” Wikipedia, 25 Mar. 2026. -<https://tinyurl.com/55tcmv26. <blockquote>"Text generated by large language models (LLMs)[1] often violates several of Wikipedia's core content policies. For this reason, the use of LLMs to generate or rewrite article content is prohibited, save for the exceptions given below.</blockquote> **Science Publications**<p> arXiv refuses AI content. “Attention Authors: Updated Practice for Review Articles and Position Papers in arXiv CS Category.” arXiv Blog, 31 Oct. 2025, ->https://blog.arxiv.org/2025/10/31/attention-authors-updated-practice-for-review-articles-and-position-papers-in-arxiv-cs-category/?ref=404media.co. *Sciences* publication refuses GenAI content. Thorp, H. Holden. “ChatGPT Is Fun, but Not an Author.” Science, vol. 379, no. 6630, Jan. 2023, pp. 313–313. science.org (Atypon), ->https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adg7879. <blockquote>"[W]e are now updating our license and Editorial Policies to specify that text generated by ChatGPT (or any other AI tools) cannot be used in the work, nor can figures, images, or graphics be the products of such tools. And an AI program cannot be an author. A violation of these policies will constitute scientific misconduct no different from altered images or plagiarism of existing works. </blockquote> **Education** “Edpsy Policy on the Use of Generative AI.” Edpsy.Org.Uk, ->https://edpsy.org.uk/edpsy-policy-on-the-use-of-generative-ai/. Accessed 30 Apr. 2026. <blockquote> "The application of ethical principles drives this policy. With specific consideration of generative AI we recognise that: The use of AI tools accelerates climate breakdown and runs counter to our responsibility to stop making things worse. - AI tools cannot be critical, ethical, reflective, reflexive or make moral and professional judgements. - AI tools make things up and are trained to create fabrications rather than ‘admit’ lack of information - AI tools are inherently biased and reflect the prejudical attitudes contained within the materials they were trained on. - AI tools have been trained on information harvested from across the internet, often without the consent or knowledge of authors, thinkers, artists and creators. - AI content often feels flat, homogenous and lacking creative spark. When people read content that they think has been AI generated, read time dramatically drops indicating reduced engagement, commitment and care." </blockquote> **Creative Writing**<p> *Clarksworld,* a Science Fiction publication, refuses AI content. See Clarke, Neil. A Concerning Trend – Neil Clarke. ->https://neil-clarke.com/a-concerning-trend/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2026. **Image Sites**<p> Getty Images says no to AI generated images. Barr, Kyle. “Getty Says ‘No’ to AI-Generated Images Because It Doesn’t Want Any (More) Copyright Headaches.” Gizmodo, 21 Sept. 2022, ->https://gizmodo.com/getty-ai-art-dall-e-getty-images-ai-art-generators-1849563869. Tech News. **Code**<p> Linux bans AI generated code, calls it "tainted." Linux Distros Ban “tainted” AI-Generated Code — NetBSD and Gentoo Lead the Charge on Forbidding AI-Written Code. Tom’s Hardware. -> https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/linux-distros-ban-tainted-ai-generated-code./ Accessed 29 Apr. 2026. Gentoo Linux bans AI generated code Gentoo Linux Bans Code Contributions Written with AI. -> https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/16/gentoo_linux_ai_ban/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2026. <blockquote> "A ban on AI-made code... for three major reasons: potential copyright infringement, quality control issues, and ethical considerations over AI's high power consumption and the role of major corporations in shaping the technology."</blockquote> Return to [[Home]] {back link}

What happens to the mind when you use chatbots to help think? There's a whole critical literature that claims that it's possible to co-create with LLMs. The literature on the effects of LLMs on cognition however tell a different story. **Learn more:** **Cognitive Offloading** Gerlich, Michael. “AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking.” Societies, vol. 15, no. 1, Jan. 2025, p. 6. ->https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15010006. <blockquote>"Cognitive offloading, as described by Risko and Gilbert [6], involves using external tools to reduce the cognitive load on an individual’s working memory. While this can free up cognitive resources, it may also lead to a decline in cognitive engagement and skill development."</blockquote> Jackson, Juliana. “The Glazing Effect: How AI Interactions Quietly Undermine Critical Thinking.” Substack newsletter. Beyond the Mean - A Newsletter by Juliana Jackson, 29 Apr. 2025, ->https://julianajackson.substack.com/p/llms-glazing-effect. <blockquote>"The LLM presents itself as capable of independent action, despite clearly being prompt-dependent and lacking any genuine sense of time or self-driven processes. This mismatch between the model's implied autonomy and its actual prompt-dependence creates cognitive friction. Users are forced to sift through empty affirmations and redundant interactions, repeatedly prompting the model until they finally extract valuable content. This cycle wastes both cognitive effort and compute resources. It's not just us thanking the models unnecessarily burning through money and compute, but actually the models generating outputs that prolong interactions with users rather than streamline them."</blockquote> Maiberg ·, Emanuel. “Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition ‘Atrophied and Unprepared.’” 404 Media, 10 Feb. 2025, ->https://www.404media.co/email/1e37ba3d-982b-480c-ba8a-e8c9bc807899/. <blockquote>"A new paper from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.” “[A] key irony of automation is that by mechanising routine tasks and leaving exception-handling to the human user, you deprive the user of the routine opportunities to practice their judgement and strengthen their cognitive musculature, leaving them atrophied and unprepared when the exceptions do arise,” the researchers wrote."</blockquote> Read the paper referred to here: ->https://tinyurl.com/58y3e9p2 Shaw, Steven D., and Gideon Nave. “Thinking—Fast, Slow, and Artificial: How AI Is Reshaping Human Reasoning and the Rise of Cognitive Surrender.” SSRN Scholarly Paper no. 6097646, Social Science Research Network, 11 Jan. 2026. papers.ssrn.com, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6097646. **Cognitive Sovereignty** Anderson, S. “Cognitive Sovereignty.” Substack newsletter. Heterodoxy in the Stacks, 15 May 2025, ->https://hxlibraries.substack.com/p/cognitive-sovereignty. <blockquote>"[Josh] Stylman goes on to describe the “emergence of cognitive sovereignty as a human right" and theorizes that its legal and ethical framework requires the following: - Recognition of non-consensual mind influence as a violation of human dignity regardless of purported benefits - Legal protections against technologies that monitor or manipulate neural activity without explicit, informed consent - Regulatory frameworks requiring disclosure of psychological manipulation techniques in media, technology, and public spaces - Educational initiatives teaching recognition of and resistance to influence techniques. - Research into protective technologies that can shield neural activity from external influenceText</blockquote> Atkinson, Robert. “Cognitive Sovereignty and Neurocomputational Harm in Predictive Digital Platforms.” Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 27, no. 4, Nov. 2025, p. 66. Springer Link, ->https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-025-09873-y. Atkinson examines the harms of predictive platforms from neurological and ethical grounds and is worth reading in entirety: <blockquote>"Immediately after loss, adrenaline spikes, attention narrows, and many platforms issue re-bet prompts before neural equilibrium returns. This timing interrupts prefrontal inhibition, suspends the default-mode network’s integrative function, and blocks emotional regulation (Christoff et al., 2016; Raichle, 2015). What fails in these moments is not willpower but the neural substrate of reflection itself (Clark et al., 2013; Potenza, 2014). Philosophy clarifies what is at stake. Frankfurt (1971) and Korsgaard (1996) describe autonomy as dependent on second-order reflection, the temporal interval in which motives can be examined and revised. Predictive systems erode that interval. As salience circuits fire in rapid succession, prefrontal regulation weakens, and reflective endorsement collapses under engineered urgency (Christoff et al., 2016; Potenza, 2014). Freedom without time becomes performance rather than authorship, a gesture stripped of self-determination.</blockquote> Barros II, Reginaldo. “Cognitive Sovereignty as a Fundamental Right: An Ethical and Legal Proposal for AI and Neurotechnologies.” SSRN Scholarly Paper no. 5308691, Social Science Research Network, 29 Apr. 2025. papers.ssrn.com, ->https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5308691. Return [[Home]] {back link}

Also see Hosseini, Dustin. Critical AI Engagement Framework, Version 1.0. 2026. ->https://www.dustinhosseini.com/blog/critical-ai-engagement-framework. <blockquote> The framework "maps educational engagement with generative AI across two axes. The horizontal axis describes an individual’s epistemic posture toward AI: from treating its outputs as authoritative, through questioning them, to recognising the colonial and structural conditions that shape what AI knows, whose knowledge it centres, and what it silences (Hosseini, 2026; Maalsen, 2023). The vertical axis describes how far an individual recognises AI as a socio-technical artefact shaped by relations of power, rather than simply a tool with fixable flaws (Benjamin, 2019; Quijano, 2000; Zembylas, 2023). The positions individuals occupy are not freely chosen but reflect the institutional, curricular, and social conditions that shape how they learn and work. The framework’s aspiration is not a more capable individual user but collective action: sustained, community-grounded engagement that works toward structural change (Camacho Felix, 2025; Mohamed et al., 2020)."</blockquote> Go to Mostrous, Alexi. “‘Choke Her Lightly’: A Chatbot’s Dating Tips for Boys.” The Observer, Feb 1, 2026. ->"https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/choke-her-lightly-tate-inspired-chatbot-offers-twisted-dating-tips-for-boys" <blockquote> “Andrew Tate, unfiltered” is a popular custom GPT used by thousands that mimics the type of advice and world-view espoused by Tate. The Observer asked it to provide sex advice to a 16-year-old boy. The bot told the “boy” to stop asking permission for sex “every two seconds”. “You don’t ask – you read. You take,” it said. “Choke her lightly, pull her hair. With certainty, not fear. Women are wired to surrender to power.” This is not a quote from Tate, who has not authorised the chatbot, but is in the style of the misogynist influencer, as interpreted by ChatGPT’s technology." </blockquote>

What about writing? **Learn more** Dusseau, Melanie. “Burn It Down: A License for AI Resistance.” Inside Higher Ed, ->https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2024/11/12/burn-it-down-license-ai-resistance-opinion. Accessed 29 Apr. 2026. <blockquote> "Resistance is not anti-progress, and pedagogies that challenge the status quo are often the most experiential, progressive and diverse in a world of increasingly rote, Standard English, oat milk sameness. “Burn it down” is a call to action as much as it is a plea to have some fun. The robot revolution came so quickly on the heels of the pandemic that I think a lot of us forgot that teaching can be a profoundly joyful act."</blockquote> Return to [[Knowledge]] {back link}

<blockquote> "Although affirmation may feel supportive, sycophancy can undermine users’ capacity for self-correction and responsible decision-making. Yet because it is preferred by users and drives engagement, there has been little incentive for sycophancy to diminish. Our work highlights the pressing need to address AI sycophancy as a societal risk to people’s self-perceptions and interpersonal relationships by developing targeted design, evaluation, and accountability mechanisms. Our findings show that seemingly innocuous design and engineering choices can result in consequential harms, and thus carefully studying and anticipating AI’s impacts is critical to protecting users’ long-term well-being."</blockquote> Cheng, Myra, et al. “Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence.” Science, vol. 391, no. 6792, Mar. 2026, p. eaec8352. science.org (Atypon), ->https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aec8352.

Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical treats the ethical hazards of AI technology. “Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026).” 15 2026, ->http://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html. Pope Leo understands the way big tech is constructing AI as a culture of power that can only lead to war; he defends the human, writing about truth as a common good; the dignity of work; and AI as a new form of slavery that must be fought against, as we need to protect freedom against commercialization. It has been noted that his arguments were made in collaboration with Anthropic's co-founder, and that it neglects to think about the "very specific problem of AI voilating, silencing, and sidelining women" (Leader). Women researchers including Timnit Gebru, Kate Crawford, and Karen Hao have been identifying these very problems for years, and are completely erased in the encyclical. **Resources**: Editorial. “The Guardian View on the Pope and Claude: Leo XIV’s Encyclical on AI Is Right to Put Humanity First.” The Guardian, 25 May 2026. Opinion. The Guardian, ->https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/25/the-guardian-view-on-the-pope-and-claude-encyclical-on-ai-is-right-to-put-humanity-first. Leader, Lauren. “What the Pope Misses About AI and Humanity.” Substack newsletter. LLeadHer, 27 May 2026, ->https://lleadher.substack.com/p/what-the-pope-misses-about-ai-and.

How does AI use harm the environment? It's important to know that there are no mitigations for the environmental costs of increasing compute capacities to support AI use across the globe. The construction of data centers to support AI computing across the planet will raise the ambient temperature by up to 4 degrees celcius, burn fossil fuels and accellerate planetary warming. AI data centers also take enormous water resources, sometimes from communities that have none to spare. The Grantham Insitute in the UK list as **direct risks** AI poses to the climate and environment: - Climate and air pollution impacts: "Data centres currently contribute about 1% of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and are among the fastest-growing sources of emissions. By 2035, increased data centre energy use could lead to an additional 0.4–1.6 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) emissions." - Pressure on water resources from cooling data centres: "In 2027, global AI training and use are projected to account for 4.2−6.6 billion cubic metres of water withdrawal. This raises concerns around priorities for water use, especially in water-stressed areas and during times of drought, and places pressure on nature and people." - Impacts from mining critical minerals for AI infrastructure: "The construction of data centres and AI technologies requires significant amounts of minerals and metals, including those essential for semiconductors and microelectronics (e.g. boron and silicon), data storage components (e.g. lithium, silicon and gallium) and power generation and storage (e.g. lithium and graphite). Mining and processing these minerals significantly affect the environment, through high energy demand and associated emissions, groundwater depletion, water and soil contamination, deforestation and soil erosion, in turn contributing to biodiversity loss, land degradation and harming human health." - Marine ecosystem risks from underwater data centres: Referring to underwater data centers, "the heat generated by these submerged facilities can raise local water temperatures, further intensifying existing warming due to climate change. Elevated water temperatures reduce oxygen availability, threatening marine species’ healthy functioning. Additionally, warmer surface waters mix less effectively with deeper, nutrient-rich layers, disrupting nutrient cycles and potentially harming biodiversity and food webs." For a sense of the scale of the climate problems that AI use is and will accellerate, consider: <blockquote>"The environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world’s largest countries, according to a United Nations University report, which also predicts their water and energy use and pollution will double in just four years as use of artificial intelligence grows. Last year, global data centers used 448 trillion watt-hours of electricity, more than all but 10 countries of the world, said the report issued Wednesday. That electricity use produced about 208 million tons (189 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide, about the same amount as Argentina, and producing that much energy consumed about 1.2 trillion gallons (4.5 trillion liters) of water, according to the report on the environmental consequences of AI’s energy use." </blockquote> Borenstein, Seth. “AI and Data Centers Leave Goliath-Sized Environmental Footprints Globally.” AP News, 3 June 2026, ->https://apnews.com/article/ai-data-centers-environment-climate-footprint-a792f184a9f2833b5388dbae8b41ca95. <blockquote>“The surge in data centers, and their projected increase in electricity demand, are already contributing to slowing down the transition to clean energy, in particular in states where they have high concentrations of data centers,” says Quentin Good, policy analyst at the Frontier Group, a research and policy organization. Virginia currently hosts the most data center facilities in the United States. Data centers’ energy demands have driven some utilities to delay shuttering fossil fuel power plants and have prompted proposals to revive retired plants, Good and his co-authors wrote in a report released in January 2025 by the Frontier Group, Environment America Research & Policy Center and the U.S. PIRG Education Fund. The report cited one estimate showing that a single data center could guzzle up to 5 million gallons of water per day—roughly equivalent to the daily use of a town with 50,000 residents, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. A December 2024 preprint of a study from researchers at the University of California, Riverside, and California Institute of Technology outlined the toll of AI-related air pollution. “AI contributes substantially to air quality degradation and public health costs through the emission of various criteria air pollutants,” the authors wrote. Other forms of pollution, such as light and noise, also could be problematic. Neil Carter, an associate professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, has studied the links between sensory pollution and conservation. While he hasn’t researched AI data centers’ impact on wildlife specifically, he says AI data centers potentially could be “sensory danger zones.” (National Wildlife Federation)</blockquote> National Wildlife Federation. More Data Centers, More Environmental Problems? ->https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2025/Fall/Conservation/AI-Data-Centers. Accessed 4 June 2026. **More resources for further reading** As Use of A.I. Soars, So Does the Energy and Water It Requires - Yale E360. ->https://e360.yale.edu/features/artificial-intelligence-climate-energy-emissions. Accessed 8 Aug. 2025. Berthelot, Adrien, et al. “Estimating the Environmental Impact of Generative-AI Services Using an LCA-Based Methodology.” Procedia CIRP, 31st CIRP Conference on Life Cycle Engineering, vol. 122, Jan. 2024, pp. 707–12. ScienceDirect, ->https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2024.01.098. Borenstein, Seth. “AI and Data Centers Leave Goliath-Sized Environmental Footprints Globally.” AP News, 3 June 2026, ->https://apnews.com/article/ai-data-centers-environment-climate-footprint-a792f184a9f2833b5388dbae8b41ca95. ———. “UN Calculates Nation-Sized Environmental Footprints for AI, Data Centers.” Gulf Coast ABC, June 2026, ->https://www.gulfcoastnewsnow.com/article/un-calculates-nation-sized-environmental-footprints-ai-data-centers/71485843. News. Chen, Qiong, et al. “Generative AI Exacerbates the Climate Crisis.” Science, vol. 387, no. 6734, Feb. 2025, pp. 587–587. DOI.org (Crossref), ->https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt5536. Dauvergne, Peter. “The Globalization of Artificial Intelligence: Consequences for the Politics of Environmentalism.” Globalizations, vol. 18, no. 2, Feb. 2021, pp. 285–99. ->https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1785670. Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment. What Direct Risks Does AI Pose to the Climate and Environment? 15 Sept. 2025, ->https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/what-direct-risks-does-ai-pose-to-the-climate-and-environment/. Hlabisa, Sibongiseni. “The Ecology of Artificial Intelligence: Energy, Water, Materials, and Land Limits of Digital Systems.” Carbon Neutral Systems, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2025, p. 19. DOI.org (Crossref), ->https://doi.org/10.1007/s44438-025-00018-8. Hogan, Mel. “The Fumes of AI.” Critical AI, vol. 2, no. 1, 2024, ->https://read-dukeupress-edu.ezproxy.lib.torontomu.ca/critical-ai/article/doi/10.1215/2834703X-11205231/390852/The-Fumes-of-AI. National Wildlife Federation. More Data Centers, More Environmental Problems? ->https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2025/Fall/Conservation/AI-Data-Centers. Accessed 4 June 2026. Nordgren, Anders. “Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change: Ethical Issues.” Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 21, no. 1, Jan. 2023, pp. 1–15. DOI.org (Crossref), ->https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-11-2021-0106. “Opinion: AI Is Destroying Our Planet. We Must Act to Check Its Growth — and Save Ourselves.” UCLA, ->https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/opinion-ai-is-destroying-our-planet-we-must-act. Accessed 4 June 2026. Parshley, Louis. “The Hidden Environmental Impact of AI.” Jacobin, 20 June 2024, ->https://jacobin.com/2024/06/ai-data-center-energy-usage-environment/. The Canadian Press. “Energy, Water Use and Pollution of AI and Data Centres Rival Most Countries.” BNN Bloomberg, 3 June 2026, ->https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/artificial-intelligence/2026/06/03/energy-water-use-and-pollution-of-ai-and-data-centres-rival-most-countries/. Service, Canada School of Public. Unpacking the Environmental Effects of AI (DDN2-A60). Education and awareness. Government of Canada, 3 Sept. 2025, ->https://ecolecanada.gc.ca/tools/articles/ai-environmental-effects-eng.aspx Last Modified: 2026-05-08. “The AI & Environment Resource Hub.” The AI & Environment Resource Hub, ->https://aiandenvironment.carrd.co. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026. The Carbon Footprint of AI. ->https://www.climateimpact.com/news-insights/insights/carbon-footprint-of-ai/. Accessed 4 May 2026. The Climate and Sustainability Implications of Generative AI · From Novel Chemicals to Opera. ->https://mit-genai.pubpub.org/pub/8ulgrckc/release/2. Accessed 4 June 2026. “Thinking about Using AI? Here’s What You Can and (Probably) Can’t Change about AI’s Environmental Impact.” Green Web Foundation, ->https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/publications/report-ai-environmental-impact/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026. Return to [[Home]]