University of Chicago right to return to analog

Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash

I’m not a Luddite. I like technology just fine. I can use AI as a tool and then write pieces on the internet about why we should be careful about AI. I see no conflict there because I’m not anti-artificial intelligence. I’m anti-using technology as a crutch.

I genuinely believe many things from the past may be better than what we have today, and I also recognize the past wasn’t Utopia by any stretch of the imagination. There’s a reason a lot of people lived to the ripe old age of “died in childbirth.”

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And for once, I’m going to give a university props for doing the right thing, and it’s because of them turning back to the past. A little, at least.

Some University of Chicago students can expect an analog classroom experience next school year.

Why it matters: As higher education grapples with the role AI plays in students’ academic careers, the prestigious university known for intellectual rigor believes the classroom should be a space for “free, robust and uninhibited discussion.”

Driving the news: In a memo sent this month to UChicago Social Sciences Core chairs, Social Sciences Collegiate Division (SSCD) dean Jenny Trinitapoli said that the learning environment is best without AI.

- The Chicago Maroon student newspaper first reported the memo.

Zoom in: Next academic year, classes will be taught “analog,” Trinitapoli outlined, meaning students will read text on paper and engage primarily through guided discussion in a device-free space.

- In-person attendance is required and students will be prohibited from recording discussions.

It’s interesting, because while AI is, in fact, here to stay, the reality is that too many people use the tech as a crutch. Schools have started enabling this, too, by letting students lean in on AI.

There’s research to confirm that reading on physical paper is better for students than reading the same text from a screen.

Granted, I’m skeptical of the “uninhibited discussion” being truly uninhibited in this day and age, especially as some are already touting Woke 2: Electric Boogaloo as an oncoming thing, but let’s say that I buy that for now.

What’s interesting here is that the university isn’t abandoning technology. Students still get Claude access. They’re still able to use AI for things like research and even checking their work. They have that option remaining, which means they’ll still learn how to use AI and use it heavily in their work.

They just won’t be able to trust that AI will do everything for them.

Recordings can’t be uploaded to ChatGPT and simplified or summarized. Ebooks can’t be uploaded and have papers churned out. Students will have to read papers, learn to understand what they’re reading, and then maybe use their Claude access to hone their arguments.

And the thing is, those textbooks can’t be memory-holed anymore. They can’t just vanish into the ether later on because something within has been deemed offensive by the powers that be in academia. That information takes on a sense of resiliency that we need more of, if for no other reason than to understand the context of change.

That’s part of the record, too. That matters when it comes to history. It’s not just about what was happening and what was known, but how people talked about it; about what they learned at the time.

In the process, students are going to learn from paper and probably learn better. They’re going to have to write and understand. They’re going to have to learn to think, at least a little bit.

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What they learn and think might be less than desirable, at least from my point of view, but they’ll have to do it just the same. That’s another move in the right direction in this world, and while good news doesn’t sell, it makes for a much happier writer.

Now, if only we could clean up academia and convince them it’s about the truth, not someone’s truth. Then we might actually get somewhere academically, and maybe position our kids for a real future, not whatever the leftists who run the institutions have in mind.

And since it’ll all be in print, they can’t try to change anything simply because the heat gets too much. They’ll have to own it, and that’s glorious in all the right ways.

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