UNSW and the University of Sydney have both in recent weeks signed agreements with OpenAI to roll out ChatGPT Edu, ignoring concerns from students and staff who have been sounding the alarm over AI’s encroachment in higher education.
At the University of Sydney, university management has failed to engage with the union on this agreement and has refused to budge on their demands for safeguards around the roll-out of AI in their enterprise agreement.
As stated by Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Greens Deputy Leader and spokesperson for Higher Education:
“Major changes on campus should be decided by the people who actually make up universities: the students and staff. They should not be dictated by managers cutting closed-door deals with mega corporations.
“The irony of university managers ignoring their academics’ advice to embrace corporations that profit from stolen knowledge isn’t lost on me. Universities must be places of knowledge creation, critical inquiry, democracy, equity, and freedom of speech-all things that are antithetical to AI’s business model.
“It seems these universities are taking their cue from the Prime Minister and prioritising global tech giants over their won communities.
“The community is rightly worried about techno-fascist destruction of the environment, uncontrolled corporate power, and the social consequences of AI. It is particularly alarming to see public universities-institutions charged with teaching and producing new knowledge-rushing to embrace these dangerous technologies through deals with some of the world’s biggest tech corporations.
“We’ve seen weapons, fossil fuel and other dirty industries use university partnerships to launder their reputations and gain legitimacy. We cannot allow AI corporations to do the same to our public education and research.”
