Reaction online to my recent opinion piece in Times Higher Education on universities’ failure to strategically engage with artificial intelligence (AI) has been both fierce and illuminating. Some criticisms were measured and thoughtful; others were reflexive, polemical or rooted in deeply held convictions about what universities are – and what they must never become. Together, however, they inadvertently reinforce the point that I was making: that resistance to change in the sector is so entrenched that it has become part of its identity. To restate: the greatest threat to higher education is not AI. It is institutional inertia supported by reflexive criticism that mistakes resistance for virtue. AI did not create this problem, but it is exposing dysfunctionalities and contradictions that have accumulated over decades. Whether universities engage with AI enthusiastically or reluctantly is ultimately less important than whether they do so strategically, imaginatively and with a willingness to question their own design. Because if they don’t, others will.
