The Associated Students of UCI (ASUCI) sent Anteaters a survey asking what role, if any, they want Artificial Intelligence (AI) to play in their education on March 11. While this data is just now being collected, the Digital Learning Lab (DLL) has already planned, written and announced a course designed for instructors on how to implement AI into their classes.
The introduction of the AI in Higher Education course is right in line with UCI’s extensive and fast-paced rollout of controversial AI tools across campus. While DLL Associate Director Tamara Tate said that no one in the course is a “tech evangelist,” its marketing supports the implementation of AI rather than simple education on its pros and cons. The course objectives include using AI to create “AI-infused” lessons and “immediately” applying new knowledge to teaching. In an email promoting the course to UCI faculty — with a discount incentive — the course description focused solely on educators implementing AI. Whatever the results of ASUCI’s survey indicate, UCI’s stance on AI is clear: full steam ahead.
There are a number of reasons the implementation of AI should be met with caution and careful regulations. AI tools have been criticized for deteriorating mental health, encouraging academic dishonesty and laziness and making numerous mistakes when tutoring students. AI use even breeds a fear of the mistakes necessary for growth by prioritizing product over process. The UCI community would likely benefit from adopting AI slowly, waiting to implement it until more evidence-based strategies are developed and long-term effects on learning are analyzed. While the strategy wouldn’t make UCI an AI pioneer, it would ensure that long-standing educational traditions aren’t abandoned for a tech trend.
Thus far, UCI’s attempts to integrate AI into campus life have not properly acknowledged the many drawbacks to the new technology. ZotGPT encourages students to use AI tools for their schoolwork, describing the technology as “empowering.” The Office of Information Technology has released glowing descriptions of AI projects under “#AnteaterIntelligence.” Even the Homecoming Weekend Schedule prominently displayed a lecture on “The Power of AI” among sports and community events. The rhetoric surrounding AI is undoubtedly positive, and many current campus resources are pushing students to learn about, use and even develop AI tools.
UCI is ramping up its calls for AI advancement, particularly through social media posts targeted at high schoolers applying to the UC system. In a University of California Instagram post promoting the various UC campuses to new applicants, Irvine said that students should choose it for “Breakthroughs across science, health and AI.” AI research was portrayed as a central part of UCI’s distinctive culture, right alongside beach days and Peter the Anteater.
Presenting UCI as a campus uniquely committed to AI does a disservice to other UCs and misleads incoming students. UC San Diego offers Bachelor’s degrees in both AI and cognitive science with specialization in machine learning and neural computation, while UC Merced offers a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering/machine learning. UCI only offers a graduate program in AI, and only as it can be applied to other sciences.
It’s also unfair to depict AI as technology the UCI community universally embraces. The School of Information and Computer Science enrolls only 5,000 of UCI’s 36,621 students, and within the School of Engineering, only four out of 33 degree programs inherently relate to machine learning. Many other fields are also part of UCI’s academic culture, and some have a negative perspective on AI expansion. Humanities argue that AI devalues art and creativity, relies on plagiarism and reduces critical thinking. When UCI continues to promote AI — even as technology CEO Alex Karp says it will significantly reduce the political and economic power of humanities-educated women. Scholars are left to wonder whether the university really supports non-STEM careers or if it will feed humanities students’ tuition money and research into the very chatbots meant to replace them.
The neglect of the humanities is not an anomaly within UCI’s prioritization patterns. Even as UCI’s branch of the Speak Up for Science campaign created multiple Instagram posts directly encouraging the federal funding of AI research, UCI is facing its own protests for unnecessarily defunding non-technological subjects. A stance on AI that does not give proper consideration to the humanities’ perspective simply continues the ongoing cultural devaluation of many UCI students and faculty.
Overall, UCI’s intense emphasis on AI expansion raises questions about its commitment to well-rounded educational discussion and opportunity. Instead of continuing to rapidly extend AI across fields and methods, UCI should slow down and make sure it’s actively making space for the diversity of thought necessary to the Anteater Virtues. ASUCI is on the right track with their survey; the UCI administration should follow suit and approach AI with more critique and communication.
Learning — when it isn’t outsourced to a chatbot — requires intense time and attention. If UCI demands that effort from its students as they learn physics and music, it has to offer the same when learning to implement AI.
Ruby Goodwin is an Opinion Intern for the winter 2026 quarter. She can be reached at regoodwi@uci.edu.
Edited by Casey Mendoza
