AI IS COMING for human thought. Studies show that a majority of students in Ireland and beyond are using AI tools. Without denying the myriad of useful applications in a variety of fields, as university lecturers we increasingly see that it is poison for education in the humanities and social sciences. Historian Matthew Connelly is right to frame the advancement of AI as an “attack” or even a “war” on human intelligence. This is not only a danger for educational institutions, it is a societal one.

Schools and universities are at the forefront of this battle. They have to develop proactive responses to AI in order to protect a culture of human thought. We should stop trying to integrate AI into our curriculums, and we would be naive to pretend that the errors AI-tools still make are some kind of insurance. They are getting better every day, and recent studies show people, including lecturers, are not as good at identifying AI-generated writing as we imagine. If we want thinking to survive as a human endeavour, we have to shield students, and indeed ourselves, from AI.

Of course, there are applications of AI that can push the frontier also in the humanities and the social sciences. Digital methods more broadly can be insightful tools. Any educational institution that does not want to lose touch has to educate their students in the digital state of the art, including AI. But the vast majority of our time should be devoted to the teaching of critical thought, outside of digital environments and AI.

As educators, we have been fighting a losing battle for years. The advent........

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