AI boosters only, please.

This morning, the University Librarian at Charles Sturt University blocked me on LinkedIn. I was taken aback, but also this is just exactly the kind of reason I told myself I shouldn’t weigh in on the GenAI thing. I respect someone’s decision to delete their own post, which is what they did, if it’s resulting in inflammatory or emotive discussion. But I am disappointed that this is where we’re at with GenAI.

For context, yesterday this person (who has thousands of followers) made a post promoting “practical AI wisdom” and encouraging educators to do away with lessons about the workings of GPTs in favour of encouraging students to repeatedly, reflectively use AI tools.

I (but not only I) responded by saying I agreed that the abstract declarative approach is pretty rubbish, but that I couldn’t agree with the argument that instead, students should just go ahead and use these tools they don’t understand. (I likened this to suggesting that because a textbook on fluid dynamics is a poor way to learn to swim, instead we should just jump into the shark-infested waters. My apologies to sharks.)

They deleted it — not just my comment, but the whole post. I wish I’d made a screenshot.

I don’t mind the deletion. It’s their public profile, and it was their post to moderate. I am particularly bothered by the blocking. This is something I might expect had I launched a personal attack or started ranting about the broligarchy, but not for a reasoned disagreement on a clearly controversial topic.

It is incredibly disappointing that university leaders are behaving like this.