AI and higher education: A diffractive reading

Abstract

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education presents challenges for how the sector should think about research, curriculum work and pedagogy (teaching-learning, and assessment). In this article, the authors performed a thought experiment to explore concepts and ideas rather than asserting definitive conclusions, through a diffractive reading of vignettes we produced on AI's introduction into higher education in the domains of research, curriculum, and pedagogy. To prepare for our diffractive reading process, each author independently wrote vignettes on the application of AI on the domains of research, curriculum work, and pedagogy. Before the diffractive reading we did not access or read each other's vignettes. Our diffractive reading comprised two phases. Firstly, we constructed diffractive patterns by invigorating lines of connection between/among our three vignettes. Secondly, each of us generated lines of connection between two vignettes, other than our own, on an aspect that we had excluded in our own vignettes. Through a diffractive reading exercise we generated new insights, resulting in a richer understanding of the complex intra-actions between human and non-human actors in higher education. By interrogating AI as a transformative enabler rather than a mere technological advancement, we uncover entanglements of AI with research, curriculum work, and pedagogy. Our diffractive methodology highlights the performativity of AI and the imperative of reconfiguring higher education to embrace complexity, relationality, and ethical response-ability. The contribution the article makes to AI vis-à-vis higher education is to provide a posthumanist critique of the affordances of AI, challenging the neoliberal and instrumentalist paradigms that dominate current higher education practices. Additionally, it provides practical insights into the ethical and ecological implications of the application of AI in higher education contexts.