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June 2026 Digest

Curated content for AI haters.

June 2026 Digest
Screenshot from MallBat's "GOOD GIRL WITH A GUN" (YouTube)

Readers, I have a burning rage within my heart.

During our departmental faculty "retreat" this week (really an 8-hour meetings with numerous discussion topics), my colleagues brought up generative AI on, by my count, at least 6 separate occasions. Once during a discussion of grad student qualifying exams, once during a discussion of how to improve a certain course, and so on. It was one comment from a faculty that really sent me into a frenzy: the notion that we could free up some of our grad students' time by having them "grade" student work by feeding it into tools like ChatGPT.

Not only is this straightforwardly a FERPA violation (which I swiftly brought up in an attempt to shut down this idea), something about this really activated me. I think about AI's impact on education daily as I prepare to make a new video about it this summer; today's Digest has numerous such readings about the subject. I can accept that there will always be some students who use LLMs in a capacity that we could consider cheating. However, the idea that we as instructors should be using it to "optimize our time" sent me over the edge.

What are we even doing here if students use AI to generate their work and then we use AI to grade it? It'd be two robots talking to each other instead of two humans. What are we even doing here if not building relationships with students and giving them personalized learning support? What are we "optimizing" for if not human connection?

The very premise of higher education is that, yes, you can find all this information at the public library, but education is more than collecting information. You choose to enroll in a degree program so that you can have those resources hand-curated for you, so that you have an instructor guiding you through the material in ways that challenge you, so that you can build relationships with mentors who can keep you accountable to your learning, and so that you can make professional connections that will serve you in your career.

LLMs have shattered this social contract. I see it in my work as a teacher. Students don't show up to class, they don't come to office hours, they don't build relationships with faculty. They don't even build relationships with one another; why work together on a homework assignment when AI can do it all for you? Nobody has to talk to anyone anymore, just plug the assignment from Canvas into Claude, then take the Claude output and submit it on Canvas. Getting an advanced degree in chemical engineering now merely involves moving text between digital interfaces alone in your room. Actually, thanks to "AI agents", even this is not required; new tools are emerging that do all of that autonomously, all for $10/month.

Dystopian as this may seem, I am delighted to see such a strong AI backlash amongst students. Skepticism that it can genuinely help them learn is on the rise, and more students are realizing every day that, hey, having a "do everything for me" button is not teaching them anything. What gives me the most hope, though, it talking to the very young.

This past Saturday, I hosted Queer Science, a day for LGBTQ+ teens to meet LGBTQ+ STEM researchers at the Five Colleges. The last event of the day, featuring a talk from my good friend and colleague Siobhan Meï, was about AI ethics. The room of Gen Z-Alpha Cusps was unanimous in their hatred of LLMs and how they've been incorporated at the high school level. Some were even forced to write their essays with ChatGPT, and one who refused got a worse grade on their essay because of it.

"No one is actually pro-AI," said one student when I asked about their peers' attitudes for the technology. "People either really hate it and don't use it, or they know it's bad for them but they don't care because they don't have any hope for the future." While most teachers assume that people only use ChatGPT because they're lazy, there's an even darker reality worth exploring; that while there have always been teenagers that are disillusioned or apathetic, our young people may be uniquely so, confronted with multiple apocalypses and responding by giving up.

Still, all the young queer people I met seemed to have the fight in them still. They asked for resources on why ChatGPT is bad for learning--which we happily provided--and seemed genuinely fired up about taking these resources to their principles. The possibility of claiming religious exemption from AI was even discussed. The kids are still out here fighting for the world they want. It's our job to have their back.

Happy Pride Month!

-Anna

Action Items

Enroll in my summer course, Plastics in Society, by the end of June for a guaranteed seat!

Science (this is all about AI I am so so sorry)

News

Opinions

Lord of the Rings "aye, I could do that" meme where "an elf" is replaced with "a NIMBY".

Watch History

Bops, Vibes, & Jams

Wholesomeposting

In some good news, the graduating Seniors gave me this superlative! ^.^
My partner gave me a new lesbian-coded multitool with our initials on the blade! <3 <3
Description: A book of CDs with the caption "My first book of spells"
"They don't know this life of partying is meaningless" / "He doesn't know that this life of introversion and delusional superiority is meaningless"
Chansey in Pokopia, "I'm pretty confident in my ability to judge someone's character based on their vibes!"
Instagram story post with purple font on a black background. "I HAVE A LOW FOLLOWER COUNT BECAUSE I ONLY APPEAL TO THE DIVINELY SELECTED. YOU WERE DIVINVELY GUIDED TO ME. ONE FATEFUL SCROLL AND I APPEARED TO YOU."

And now, your monthly Koko.

Koko the cat, sleeping on her bed.

That’s all for now! Expect another Digest at the start of July.

In solidarity,

-Anna

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