A recent Current Affairs article argues that artificial intelligence is destroying the university and learning itself. It is a forceful critique, animated by a familiar techno-anxiety. The article presents an emerging dystopian curriculum where students are offloading thought to machines, faculty are losing the ability to assess genuine understanding, and institutions are quietly hollowing themselves out in the name of efficiency. The conclusion is stark, and the grade is an A—for artificial. AI, we are told, is eroding the conditions that make education meaningful.

First, this argument deserves attention. But it rests on a hidden assumption that the institutional form we call “higher education” was still meaningfully aligned with learning before AI arrived. I’m not convinced it was.

What artificial intelligence is destabilizing may not be learning at all, but an educational temple that quietly displaced "cognitive veritas" with substitutes that don't just feel correct, but are ready for translation to Latin.

AI doesn't smash something solid, but reveals something brittle.

This is not the first time a technological shift has been misread as a form of cultural vandalism. The Industrial Revolution was accused of destroying work, and along the way, dignity and skill. In retrospect, it destroyed a particular definition of work—one rooted in muscle and physical proximity—and........

© Psychology Today