Post #852192

"Dear students, As you know, in February the University announced that all students, staff and faculty will now be offered access to the Google chatbot, “Gemini.” In a series of emails to the Georgetown community, the Interim President and Interim Provost explained that this is part of a larger plan to put “generative AI” (a term which they do not define, but by which they appear to mean simply chatbots and other chatbot-like data products) at the center of a whole range of university activities, from scholarship and curriculum development to the various functions of the administrative bureaucracy. I was not surprised to learn that Georgetown, like most American colleges and universities, has succumbed to the pressure to appear part of the “AI” in-crowd (and to the temptation of the resources being made available to those in that crowd). But even though everything I have done in my professional life has been in some way based on the expectation that institutions will tend towards corruption, corrosion and capture, when I think about what this particular instance of that phenomenon signifies for you, the students of Georgetown, I feel very sad and angry. And I decided that the best thing to do with that sadness and anger would be to write to you all directly about why this decision by your university, which may seem on the surface to be an example of garden variety corporate thoughtlessness, should disturb you deeply, and provoke you to fight back." Read the rest at: https://medium.com/center-on-privacy-technology/an-open-letter-to-georgetown-students-in-response-to-recent-announcements-about-generative-ai-8869dcd523ef Emily Tucker Executive Director Center on Privacy & Technology Georgetown Law