As generative AI reshapes how students read, write, and think, the university is compelled to reexamine its fundamental purpose. If writing has long been understood as a mode of thought, what follows when that process can be delegated to, or mediated by, algorithmic systems?

This panel convenes faculty, students, and practitioners to consider how AI transformations are unfolding in real time. Drawing on experiences within and beyond the classroom, panelists will assess where AI augments learning and where it diminishes it, how it reconfigures the social dimensions of education, and what these shifts reveal about the aims of undergraduate study.

The discussion will also address broader epistemic and institutional stakes: whether AI compresses intellectual difference into standardized forms, and what it means to teach thinking when the tools that structure it are embedded in corporate infrastructures. At the same time, the panel will consider potential gains, including expanded access to analytical resources, new modes of engagement with complex material, and alternative pathways into academic inquiry.

Speakers

Hua Hsu is a staff writer at The New Yorker ("What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing?") and the author of A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure Across the Pacific (2016) and Stay True (2022), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Hsu publishes Suspended in Time, a zine about music and life, and serves on the governance board of Critical Minded, an initiative to support cultural critics and writers. He previously taught at Vassar College and Harvard University and was formerly a fellow at the New American Foundation and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at the New York Public Library. Professor Hsu’s research and teaching interests include Asian American studies, transpacific studies, American and Indigenous Studies, narratives of place and space, popular culture and subculture, and literary nonfiction.

Mario Khreiche is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research and teaching interests include education technologies, the history of computing, and online communities. Currently, his work focuses on the impacts of generative AI on education, the workforce, and the environment. His writing is featured in Fast Capitalism, Eludamos, and the Journal of Environmental Media. He was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh.

Madisson Whitman is the director of undergraduate studies and assistant director of curriculum development in the Center for Science and Society and a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology. As a sociocultural anthropologist and science and technology studies (STS) researcher, Madi studies how technologies, institutions, and subjectivities are made together. This research is currently animated by questions about surveillance and marginality in changing regimes of data collection in higher education in the United States. Madi’s pedagogical work includes supporting interdisciplinary co-teaching at Columbia, developing curricula in science and society, and investigating the landscape of STS education in the U.S. Madi earned a PhD in anthropology from Purdue University in 2020, completed a BA in anthropology at the University of North Dakota, and was previously a Visiting Research Fellow in the Program on Science, Technology and Society at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Shea Vance is a senior at Barnard College majoring in American Studies. She served as the 149th editor in chief and president of the Columbia Daily Spectator, Columbia's independent flagship student newspaper and the second-oldest college daily in the nation. Formerly a university news editor, Shea has spent the majority of her time at Spectator reporting on Columbia and Barnard student life, administration, finances, and campus protests. Aside from campus reporting, Shea reports on City Hall and local issues for amNewYork. After graduating in May, Shea will join the Chronicle of Higher Education as a reporting fellow in Washington, D.C.

Preston Parker is a sophomore at Columbia University studying Political Science and Statistics. Last year, he came to Columbia feeling alienated and aimless and quickly realized that cellular devices, and by extension technology as a whole, were the root cause of this feeling. He founded Columbia’s Luddite club chapter, where the group goes to events across NYC, talks about their qualms with technology, and just has a phone-free space for people to meet. He is eager to learn more about how he can better people's relationships with technology, constantly critique it, and as a result, attack big tech corporations that exploit human faculties.

Moderator

Manan Ahmed is an Associate Professor of History at Columbia University, specializing in South Asian intellectual history and the philosophy of history. His work focuses on how historical narratives shape ideas of place and identity, particularly in the medieval and early modern periods. He is the author of A Book of Conquest, The Loss of Hindustan, and Disrupted City, a walking history of Lahore. At the Data Science Institute, Ahmed contributes to digital history initiatives that integrate spatial and textual analysis. He co-founded the Group for Experimental Methods in the Humanities and collaborates on projects that use computational tools to uncover overlooked narratives and archives.

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