Adam Serwer of The Atlantic reported on how Texas Tech University is implementing artificial intelligence to help the university root out suspected "woke" texts from its curriculum, a move that has caused roughly a quarter of the university's staff to look for work elsewhere. The chatbot was developed in response to a state law that requires academia to represent that there are only two genders, male and female.That’s the second issue. The State of Texas has lost its fucking mind and is determined to take every man, woman, and child down with it. It was bad when I was in school; I never imagined it would get worse.
At times, the university's AI chatbot has completely mischaracterized perspectives about certain works and has hallucinated some reasons for excluding material, Serwer noted.
"The difference between 'advocating' and 'teaching' is not clearly defined, but the way the censorship policy is being implemented makes the situation pretty clear: If you’re using material that state lawmakers agree with, that’s teaching; if you’re talking about something they object to, that’s advocacy, and you have to stop," Serwer noted.
The university's use of AI to enforce state law has rankled many of the university's tenured staff. For instance, Alan Berenberg, who specializes in Soviet Union history, told Serwer that the university's AI concocted a "completely inaccurate" reason to exclude readings from Princeton historian Joan Scott and the French philosopher Michel Foucault.
“The fact that the system AI doesn’t work, that it makes inaccurate pronouncements—that’s a feature, not a bug. They don’t care if it’s accurate or not. They just want to be able to say, Look, we’re making sure that your children are not being exposed to these horrible ideas from these radical professors,” Barenberg said. “A key part of how authoritarian systems often work is that, through the vagueness and sending up signals and vibes, they’re essentially saying, You know what not to do, but being deliberately vague about it.”
William Wenthe, a poetry professor, told Serwer that the university is demeaning its students by using AI for this purpose.
“They’re old enough to vote. They’re all old enough to fight and die for this country. And you’re treating them like babies," he said.
Lisa Limeri, a biology professor who recently received tenure, was more curt. “We are not allowed to teach them scientifically, accurately," she said.
“America has risen to global prominence in science and scientific research because of the strength of our system,” Limeri said. “If these kinds of censorship policies were implemented everywhere, we would have a generation of students who are not learning to think critically, are not learning to think for themselves, and are not learning full and accurate scientific information.”
But the first issue is AI, my hobbyhorse (I wonder if they still let Tristram Shandy be taught. I doubt it. But the double entendre about nose size might get past AI.
Then again, AI would treat “A Modest Proposal” as an economic text; or a business manual.) Again, I wonder at the value of AI. A large language model is still just a database running a keyword search. I used to tell my students not to rely on such searches for research, because keywords will not find the information necessary for true research. Using it as a replacement for research, for actually reading and understanding and finding and learning, is to avoid learning at all costs. Something most of my students did without the aid of technology.
Turning these matters over to AI is an excuse for cruelty without taking on any responsibility. No one is responsible for reprehensible decisions: AI decided, and AI doesn’t have an agenda! Well, that, and it provides the brute force to ensure the state’s agenda is rigidly followed. But is this what Texas needs nearly 600 data centers for?
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