Professor bans devices to keep AI out, citing Swift

The essay ties today's classroom AI debate to a much older argument. Swift's third voyage takes Gulliver to the Academy of Lagado, where scientists pursue experiments with little concern for useful outcomes, and to a wooden contraption that lets "the most ignorant person" write books "without the least assistance from genius or study." The author reads that device as an early picture of both the autocomplete nature of large language models and the precarious workers whose labour underpins generative AI.

The piece also draws a parallel between Swift's Laputans — so absorbed in speculation that servants had to rattle them back to attention — and modern distraction, from phone scrolling to students day trading cryptocurrency during lectures. He recalls a student telling him he made $8,000 trading $MELANIA Coin while the class discussed the first referendum on Quebec sovereignty.

What the outcome hinges on is whether a device-free classroom can hold. The author says students broadly acknowledge the benefits, but also notes some want the slides back, that AI use is widespread enough to pressure students to follow suit, and that AI boosterism at some US commencement speakers was booed earlier this summer. For instructors, the test may be whether the approach protects the teacher-student relationship without turning the classroom into a policing exercise.