IN EARLY NOVEMBER, an email arrived from our programme coordinator. It contained a single question: “Given the rise of AI, what should be the role of human teachers of writing?” Things have changed. Two years earlier, when I asked the university whether we should prepare a coherent framework for artificial intelligence (AI) in teaching, the reply was instantaneous: “Why should we be first?”
The reckoning has arrived, whether we are ready or not. AI has arrived, like a spectre haunting education—fluent, tireless, efficient and increasingly woven into students’ lives. Yet, the real issue is not the machines. The real issue is something much more fragile: universities have lost the conditions under which thinking can actually happen. AI did not create these conditions; AI merely unveiled them. When conditions for thinking erode, humans do what humans always do: compensate, offload, reach for whatever reduces cognitive strain. Before we debate what teachers should do in the age of ChatGPT, Gemini and Deepseek, we must ask a more foundational question: Do our classrooms still offer the mental, emotional and social space that allows students to think at all?
