{"id":2280,"date":"2025-10-15T11:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/?p=2280"},"modified":"2025-10-20T13:58:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:58:14","slug":"we-dont-need-to-panic-clay-shirky-on-nyus-approach-to-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/15\/we-dont-need-to-panic-clay-shirky-on-nyus-approach-to-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We don\u2019t need to panic\u2019: Clay Shirky on NYU\u2019s approach to AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When ChatGPT launched in 2022, Clay Shirky \u2014 then NYU\u2019s vice provost for education technologies \u2014 suddenly found himself guiding the university\u2019s response to artificial intelligence. Since then, he\u2019s spoken with hundreds of faculty members and students, aiming to understand how AI is changing academia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before joining the provost\u2019s office, Shirky was an Interactive Media Arts professor at NYU Shanghai and served as the site\u2019s chief information officer, helping faculty adapt to teaching in China. He is currently an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and the Interactive Telecommunications Program, and has authored several books about technology and societal change.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an interview with WSN, Shirky spoke about what he\u2019s hearing from the NYU community, the university\u2019s AI partnerships and why classrooms should preserve space for human connection.<\/span><\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

WSN:<\/b> There\u2019s a lot of discourse around AI moving faster than anyone can keep up with. What\u2019s your view on that?<\/span><\/p>\n

Shirky: <\/b>I actually don\u2019t like the narrative that change is now happening faster than ever. I lived through the web revolution, and although there was rhetoric of, \u2018Oh my gosh, change is coming so fast,\u2019 it took two decades to fully seep in. Right now, the most important paper on AI is called \u2018AI as a Normal Technology.\u2019 What it says is that behind the hype, this is just another powerful new technology diffusing through the ordinary sectors of society in ordinary ways. We should stop treating it as this unprecedented meteor strike and instead think, \u2018How do we integrate new technologies when they show up?\u2019 My first job is assuring people that there is time to deal with this. We need to deal with it expeditiously, but we don\u2019t need to panic.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an August <\/span>New York Times op-ed<\/span><\/a>, Shirky advised universities to take a \u201cmedieval turn\u201d and transition from take-home assignments to in-class assessments, forcing students to learn without offloading work to AI. In an earlier <\/span>op-ed<\/span><\/a>, he said that despite the helpfulness of AI, some students are feeling a \u201cgrowing sense of sadness\u201d about their dependence on the technology. He told WSN that AI poses two main problems: a trade-off between productivity and learning and a tendency to excessively validate users.<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN:<\/b> Can you elaborate on your concerns with AI?<\/span><\/p>\n

Shirky: <\/b>If what we care about is human experience, these tools are very much a double-edged sword. Students, and some faculty, can get so focused on the output that we forget the only reason we\u2019re asking students to do stuff is so they\u2019ll have the experience of doing the work. That\u2019s our general problem. The more specific thing I\u2019m worried about is flattery. The tools say, \u2018That\u2019s such a good idea,\u2019 \u2018That\u2019s such a smart question,\u2019 \u2018No one\u2019s ever thought of that before\u2019 \u2014\u00a0 just endless obsequious glazing. Your calculator is not telling you how good you are at math while you\u2019re typing in seven times eight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite his reservations, Shirky believes it\u2019s also important to make AI financially accessible for students. NYU offers access to <\/span>external services<\/span><\/a> such as Microsoft Copilot, Zoom AI Companion, Adobe Firefly and, most notably, <\/span>Google Gemini and NotebookLM<\/span><\/a>. Shirky said that the university continues to prioritize partnering with companies that protect student data under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN:<\/b> What drove NYU\u2019s decision to partner with Big Tech companies?<\/span><\/p>\n

Shirky:<\/b> We were in a world where rich kids had better AI than poor kids. If you could spend $20 a month, you could get really high quality AI, but if you didn\u2019t, you got the freemium model and constant upselling. Given the ubiquity of adoption of AI tools by students, we were very worried about equity, so we wanted to say, \u2018Here\u2019s a standard set of tools that everyone has access to.\u2019 On the defensive side, for a long time, no one would write us a FERPA-compliant contract. It was only when it became clear that higher education was one of the principal sources of new users that those companies started to turn their attention to us. Google ended up being the only one that was willing to write us a compliant contract.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A year after ChatGPT\u2019s launch, Shirky asked students to confidentially share their experiences with AI in a <\/span>WSN guest essay<\/span><\/a>. Since then, Shirky has worked with Associate Vice Provost De Angela Duff to gather feedback across NYU\u2019s global campuses through a student council.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN:<\/b> What have you learned from student feedback on AI?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shirky:<\/b> The principal thing we\u2019ve learned is that students don\u2019t trust us. When we say it\u2019s important to acknowledge and disclose AI use to your faculty member, that\u2019s proven to be something students are only moderately willing to do. There seem to be two reasons for that. One, students don\u2019t trust that they won\u2019t get in trouble if they\u2019re using tools in ways the faculty member doesn\u2019t like, even if we promise in advance that won\u2019t happen. The second is that students know taking shortcuts reduces the opportunity for learning, but they\u2019re cross-pressured with time, extracurricular commitments and anxiety about grades and GPA.<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN: <\/b>What concerns you most about that?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shirky: <\/b>The single biggest issue here is not cheating, it\u2019s learning loss. When the people who assign the projects are also the people who grade them, we are both coaches and referees. The more students regard us as referees rather than coaches, the harder it is to have that conversation. This problem is more cultural than policy-oriented, but it\u2019s one of the things that keeps me worrying.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month, President Linda Mills announced plans for \u201c<\/span>device-free environments<\/span><\/a>\u201d across the university. The move mirrors a policy Shirky <\/span>implemented in 2014<\/span><\/a>, when he banned laptops, tablets and phones in his classes, arguing that \u201cmulti-tasking is cognitively exhausting\u201d and that devices create \u201csecond-hand smoke\u201d for other students.<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN:<\/b> What role do you think technology should play in education?<\/span><\/p>\n

Shirky:<\/b> What we need to preserve in the classroom is the ability for human beings to hear each other. People often want to treat the university as a filling station where students drive in, fill up with as much knowledge as they think they need and then drive off. Frankly, in many classrooms, the most important things that happen are student-to-student conversations, where students are wrestling with ideas together. When I was in the classroom, I would assign the final paper to be due in week 12, and every student had to answer questions about what they wrote instead of presenting their paper. Those are some of the greatest conversations I\u2019ve ever had the privilege of listening to.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN:<\/b> As an administrator, what would you like to hear from students?<\/span><\/p>\n

Shirky:<\/b> We want to hear from you. We want to know what you\u2019re seeing, what you\u2019re doing, what you\u2019re thinking, what\u2019s the difference between what you\u2019re doing and what your friends are doing. The secret of higher ed is that the relationship between the university and its students is like the relationship between a river and its water. In the short term, the river tells the water where to go, and in the long term, the water tells the river where to go. We don\u2019t have any illusion that we can change how AI works at NYU without involving the student perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact Krish Dev at kdev@nyunews.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

This story \u2018We don\u2019t need to panic\u2019: Clay Shirky on NYU\u2019s approach to AI<\/a> appeared first on Washington Square News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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