Academia and the wild west of AI

I am very excited to have started the fall semester at SAIS Europe, Johns Hopkins, here in Bologna. I am teaching two classes:

• Global Food Systems and Security: Policy, Politics and Power

• Food Systems and Climate Futures

I have 40 fantastic, whipsmart graduate students joining me on this journey over the next 13 weeks.

People keep asking me how I “handle” AI usage among students. I have a rule that AI is okay for brainstorming and ideation, translating texts, making graphics, and refining search queries, but not okay for generating text for assignments. All analysis and writing must be their own; otherwise, it is an academic integrity violation. That seems simple and straightforward, but there is really no way to regulate it, and as these models advance, it will get harder to detect when students use them to write their papers. The Economist discusses how difficult it is to spot “large language model” writing. It isn’t just students who are the problem. It is also professors. Some have told me professors write their assignments and grading rubrics using AI. The students then write their papers using AI. Then professors grade their papers using AI. So it is just AI talking to AI. One big AI orgie.

I could make them handwrite their exams, or take quizzes in class, but my students are getting degrees in international relations/affairs. They are not freshman in college. They need to think, discuss, and debate on their feet, and good writing skills are a plus. But some would argue, do we need to know how to write in the future? Scary, I know, but if AI keeps getting better at writing, maybe that is a skill humans no longer need? I can’t believe I am even “writing” this (and I really hope it is a skill we humanoids maintain), but alas, it is a debate. What skills do future professionals need in the fields of political science, geopolitics, policy analysis, and making?

What I can do is this. I have 2.5 hours with students every week, and I can engage them thoughtfully in real time in their thinking process - challenge them, get them to speak their views, look at and discuss data and case studies, and engage in group dynamics. Of course, I can proof assignments - doing live debates, group podcasts, oral presentations. I do all that, but they can still use AI to ideate and help them. However, nothing beats being together in a live classroom. At least I know, and they know, that we are living, breathing creatures, thinking through tough issues together, and engaging with other real people in real time, sometimes in heated debates, where we have the right and freedom to think, assent, acquiesce, or disagree. What else can one do except make those 2.5 hours as meaningful and delightfully human as possible? And come hell or high water, they will be food systems smart and ready for the working world when they are done. I believe that is my job. That is all I can hope for.

Of course, I am fearful about what AI is scheming and what it means for the future of academia. It truly is the Wild West. But my concern, along with everyone else’s, goes much further. In the last two weeks, those who created AI have been asking to be regulated! They are actually afraid of where their AI models are heading through the intelligence labs they built. Who would have thought that the tech giants, Elon Musk included, would want more government oversight? To me, that is the canary in the coal mine right there. What do these guys know that we don’t? AI companies are starting to share recent episodes where their AI systems are autonomously improving and beginning to outrun humans' ability to understand and control their HUMAN-designed systems. I think they are worried about things way beyond the cyber hacks that could cripple the global infrastructure…and I won’t even go there. It is just too Terminator or one of my favorites, War Games. “Do you want to play a game?”

Ezra Klein expressed his concerns in The New York Times this weekend, and this 30 min video is worth the watch. He talks about “reinforcement learning,” where these AI models are programmed to model, hack, and talk to human beings, and “we train them to be persistent, relentless, weird” in their efforts. He worries about how fast and how far the AI frontier will outpace human knowledge, and how much AI will comply with human commands if we even know how to command them as things get more complicated.

As I said, we are in the Wild West. So hang onto your hats, folks. We are in for a turbulent ride.

Hey Academics, Don’t Get Caught Up in the Drudgery

Academics face an interesting conundrum. With every paper, every research project, and every class you teach, you become more and more of an “expert” on a topic or discipline. If you are lucky, that expertise is tapped by many – students, organizations, peers.

But often, that tapping is done “for free” (and by free, I mean financially but also without care, respect, or thought on one’s time and life). I will always go to the ends of the earth to give all my energy to students and write letters of recommendation, etc. What gets my goat is when organizations solicit your ideas and knowledge without pay or acknowledgment.

Let’s first talk about reviewing journal articles. I must get at least ten emails daily asking me to peer-review manuscripts (many from predatory journals) without any immediate reward or incentive. To be clear, I am a big advocate of the peer-review process when it works and is robust – it is an essential part of the scientific process. That said, reviewing manuscripts takes a ton of time to do thoroughly and thoughtfully, and reviewing is always unpaid. Having no financial ties makes sense because once you start to monetize the process, the purpose of peer review is tainted. Serving as an editor of a journal is even worse. The honorarium payment does not nearly cover the time one must commit to ensuring the journal is stellar.

There is a multitude of reviewing requests—reviewing organizations’ reports, books for publishing houses, grant proposals submitted to funding organizations, and people’s accomplishments (tenure cases and other hires). Most of these requests to review are unpaid, and if they are paid, the payment is a very small token honorarium. What irks me is the timeframe expected to review – usually a week or two. Now I understand the need and importance of reviewing—as academics, our grants get funded, and manuscripts get published depending on the process. As academics, we honor, value, and understand the peer review process. The thing is, it has become a complete deluge of work outside the day-to-day activities that require our paid time, sometimes with little respect for how long things take to do at a level that is considered high-quality and with the workloads put upon us.

Even for organizations that pay for consultancy time – the amount paid does not match the work output. What was five days of paid consultancy takes more like ten days of one’s time. Often, the rate is relatively low (compared to the daily rate of your salary). And even when consultancies are over, one often doesn’t get the credit or acknowledgment on the final product. I have had some UN consultancies that were pathetically underpaid, way too much work, and with zero outcomes or credit. No fun...

Academics have a heavy and unique workload. For many working in research positions, you have to raise more than 50% of your salary by applying for grants (in public health schools, the amount a professor needs to raise can be as high as 80%!). Applying for grants through large university systems takes an insane amount of time, paperwork, emails, and thinking time. We have to manage teams, teach (one of the most important things we do), and serve on university and external disciplinary committees and advisory groups. We do research – which takes dedication and detail-oriented attention, particularly if you work internationally. I work about 100 hours a week. Probably a quarter of that is responding to the 300 emails that hit my inbox daily. Yup. No joke. All of this work is rewarding, and I love it. It is truly an honor to be in academia – being exploratory, describing the world and why it is the way it is, and learning from students. I really don’t have a boss. Total freedom. But the thing is, that freedom can be quickly squashed when one says “yes” to too much of this other stuff. I don’t think there is any other job or industry where you are not paid to your contributions to knowledge, or a job where you have to raise your salary. Can you imagine someone from the private sector giving their time and expertise without pay? A lawyer? A doctor?

So what to do? I admit I am in a privileged position – I am a full professor with tenure and can say no to most things I don’t want to do. I get serious joy out of saying no (which, by the way, is usually an unacceptable answer to the asker, resulting in five or six emails. Dude, no means no.). But it wasn’t always that way, and that is not the case for early career faculty and researchers. They have to do these unpaid, time-consuming tasks to show they are contributing to the world of knowledge and science, getting experience doing such things, and working towards promotion and tenure. But it is just too much.

My advice to my younger self? Be picky. Turning down one opportunity to review for Nature will not make or break your career. In fact, saying no may save it. Cherish your time and work only on the things you enjoy, and projects that move you towards tenure and promotion. Focus on doing fantastic work that contributes to the field. Serve on a few committees, but only ones that deeply interest you. Review 2-3 high-impact papers a year but not more (and definitely don’t support anything evenly seemingly predatory). Only be on grant proposal reviewing committees when the work is right in your wheelhouse; the process would help you become a better grant writer. Don’t review books – they are a waste of time, and the $200 in books they promise you nowhere near matches the time it takes to review them. It’s okay to turn things down. Be punk rock about it. Because when you come up for promotion and tenure, tenure committees will not count how many committees and articles you reviewed for journals. Instead, they will count the articles you wrote, how you contributed to them, and if you have influenced and informed your field in meaningful ways. This is what matters. So spend your energy doing great discovery research and cutting-edge science you care about. Don’t get caught up in the drudgery.