The Absurd University under the AI Chain

Teachers use AI to make courseware, students use AI to churn out homework, AI grades AI's exam questions — the absurd AI chain in universities, and the subscription arms race that follows.

The author opens with a screenshot circulating in a group chat: "teachers use AI for courseware, students use AI for homework, everyone has a bright future." Long before AI, this kind of mask-wearing pretense was already common. But AI has flattened the cognitive friction of learning to the point where the absurdity is hard to ignore — at some universities, teachers generate courseware with AI, write exam questions with AI, and grade AI-written assignments (or AI grades them), while students attend AI-produced lectures and answer with AI. To gain a relative edge in this chain, an AI subscription arms race has begun: most people use free domestic models like Doubao or DeepSeek, while the more "self-improving" types figure out how to subscribe to overseas ones. Even if some use it well and others poorly, if universities keep going this way, both teachers and students end up as AI's workforce, and more people will start asking what school is even for. In the short term, unless something changes from the outside, most ordinary universities will keep grinding away inside this absurd chain.

Teachers use AI to make courseware, give lectures, and write exam questions. Students use AI to answer AI-made questions and churn out assignments. Everyone has a bright future.

(Today I saw a pretty funny screenshot in a group chat, along with talk of the AI subscription arms race, and figured I’d write this down.) Long before AI showed up, this kind of “mask-wearing” was already everywhere. But since AI came along, the cognitive friction of learning has been thinned out, sometimes almost erased.

It gets worse as AI keeps expanding. It can make PPTs. You can feed an entire book into NotebookLM as source material and get mind maps and lecture notes with one click. At that point, the absurdity is hard to miss.

At some universities, teachers use AI to generate courseware, students use AI to finish homework. Teachers grade AI-written assignments (or maybe AI does the grading too — AI grading another AI’s exam questions, perfectly reasonable). Students sit through AI-produced lectures. Sometimes I hear stuff like this and it just feels absurd, but I don’t even know what to say. (≧▽≦)(≧▽≦)

Most college students are using free domestic models like Doubao and DeepSeek, so to get any relative edge in this chain, the AI subscription arms race has kicked off. If everyone is using AI, you have to compete on whose AI is better. Maybe in the future most people will just use a free model, and the slightly more ambitious ones will figure out how to subscribe to the overseas stuff. (^o^)/

To be fair, there’s still differentiation inside the chain. Some people use it well, some badly. But if some universities keep going like this, with both teachers and students working for AI rather than learning or teaching, more and more people are going to start asking what school is even for. Teachers, too, will probably start doubting their own value.

Of course, all of that depends on changes and reforms from somewhere. In the short term, at most ordinary universities, both teachers and students — except for the ones who are still serious, or who still have some kind of calling and refuse to just phone it in — are going to keep living and studying inside this absurd chain. gogo

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