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Jack L. Thompson
Daily Princetonian
Last Wednesday, I sat in Green Hall having an “ordinary” but peculiar experience: listening to my professor read aloud from her private set of lecture notes, while the class sat and stared at a bare-bones slideshow of historical quotes. Around me, dozens of my classmates were dutifully typing out summaries of every slide.
But, as my professor narrated her questions about the origins of the peculiar ideas of sovereignty, my attention was more focused on the origins of the peculiar idea of the lecture.
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As a professor who is known to dissent from progressive ideologies that are dominant at universities such as Princeton, where I’ve taught for nearly 40 years, I’m frequently asked by students for advice about how to navigate a campus they worry will be hostile to them. Some are pro-Israel, or politically and socially conservative, or religiously observant.
They fear being treated unfairly by faculty members who are hostile to their beliefs. Many are afraid of being regarded as outcasts by their more liberal or progressive peers. They worry about being excluded from academic opportunities or not treated equitably in social or other extracurricular activities. To these students I say, with regret: You’re right to worry. I’ve seen these things happen.
Universities may be tempted to treat these capabilities as inevitable improvements in education. Students will be able to consume vast amounts of information, more than ever before. But like AI writing itself, such consumption would be vast but shallow. The more interesting possibility, then, is that AI will force universities to rediscover the value of intellectual work that cannot be outsourced.
In the battle between Harvard and the federal government, Princeton is siding with Harvard.
On July 22, the University signed an amicus curiae brief supporting Harvard’s suit against multiple executive branch agencies over research funding cuts in a federal appeals court. The brief was joined by 35 other research universities and colleges, including the rest of the Ivy League.
