Brave new AI world: UCLA comp lit course to be fully AI (except the grading, of course)

 https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/comparative-literature-zrinka-stahuljak-artificial-intelligence?fbclid=IwY2xjawHCkWJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHevSkyx0i5RjId-pd4g4_W-cs4zgTUOz19XwrxVpLU7LD2jt9E4FEkX7Jw_aem_LRrvJbHS0TFgq9uokRfYFw

So here we are: some kind of highly monetized tech company called Kudu is going to take Professor Zrinka Stahuljak’s comp lit course materials and turn them into a fully AI-driven course—except for the grading, of course, which will be left to Teaching Assistants. 

Benefits to students? Consistency across multiple sections. 

Benefits to Teaching Assistants? They get to work on the students’ writing (autocorrect wants to make this “writhing,” and I kind of get it).

Benefits to the Professor? No additional work except for submitting grades. She doubtless has tenure and is not worried about her job. 

Any downsides? 

1. Well, the TAs are going to be stuck reading writing that is likely to be about 95% AI generated (ChatGPT, Claude, Google Notes or whatever) and maybe 5% from Chegg or Course Hero. And they will get to track it all down to report to Academic Standards.

2.  If you were a student, would you put forth your best effort, knowing that everything was canned and your professor was never going to look at any of it? If your professor was like the Karl Marx God in the clouds in a Monty Python skit, who, once having generated content, just says “Get on with it!”? Look, I teach online often, and one of the hardest but most rewarding parts is talking to students as real person to real person. What if you remove even that layer of connection?

3. Who’s going to answer their questions? AI. 

4. Oh, and the textbook that will generate all the AI? Is it OER? Oh, you sweet summer child; of course it’s not. It’s going to cost the students an additional $25 per semester. 

5. If this is the wave of the future—the MOOC of the future, if you will—what about intellectual property? 

Questions:

1. Is this going to cost the university more than simply having a course in D2L, Canvas, or Blackboard? 

2. Since Kudu is compensating the professors, how does this affect their employment with the university? 

3. Cui bono? Kudu and the University’s bottom line, probably. But what about the students? What about the connections that teaching a humanistic subject is supposed to foster? 

4. Out of state tuition at UCLA is 43K a year. Would you send your kid to be taught by a bot? Call me when Bezos and the other billionaires and millionaires send their students to be taught by nonhuman objects instead of people.