By Sean Cho Ayres
Publication Date: 2025-12-12 13:53:00
It’s the first week of the semester, the first day of class: 20 students, mostly freshmen, sit in silence waiting for our English 101 Writing Composition course to begin. Most have an AirPod to listen to what their Spotify AI DJ thinks they’re hearing; Some scroll past AI-selected ads to find dropshipped fast fashion. And then someone who forgot to mute their phone opens TikTok and the 6-7 second sound goes off. They hastily close the app without apologizing, not even a half-hearted laugh from their classmates.
Welcome to the modern college classroom.
I am a college professor who works at the intersection of the humanities and artificial intelligence, and yes, I believe that the latter not only threatens to devalue academia, but also risks humanity disappearing from our lives entirely.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Automating parts of work and life through AI challenges the next generation of workers to re-instill the importance of interpersonal social skills.
