*The role of the University is to resist AI* Sun 22 June 2025 /This is the text of a seminar given at the Goldsmiths Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought on June 11th 2025 / I would like to thank the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought <https://cpct.uk/> for inviting me to give this seminar. This talk is titled 'The role of the University is to resist AI', and takes as its text Ivan Illich's 'Tools for Conviviality' <https://archive.org/details/illich-conviviality>. AI's impact on higher education come primarily from historical forces, not from its claim to be sci-fi tech from the future. Society can't throw up its hands in shock as students outsource their thinking to simulation machines when fifty years of neoliberalism has masticated education into something homogenised, metricised and machinic. Meanwhile, so-called Ed Tech has claimed for decades that learning is informational rather than relational and ripe for technical disruption. When Illich refers to tools, he's taking this broader view. As he writes: "I use the term 'tool' broadly enough to include not only simple hardware such as drills, pots, syringes, brooms, building elements, or motors, and not just large machines like cars or power stations; I also include among tools productive institutions such as factories that produce tangible commodities like corn flakes or electric current, and productive systems for intangible commodities such as those which produce 'education,' 'health,' 'knowledge,' or 'decisions'." I want to ask the question "What kind of tool is AI?", to help determine whether Illich's ideas can assist us in responding to it. [...] continua qui: https://danmcquillan.org/cpct_seminar.html