Machines, Memory, and Inverted Utopians: Value Creation in Doctoral Education

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Wednesday 9:45am
  In Poster Session: Higher Education

Abstract

This study examines artificial intelligence integration in doctoral education, investigating how AI assistance threatens intellectual autonomy and transformative learning processes central to doctoral formation. Using critical philosophical inquiry, the research synthesizes William James's historical critique of credentialism with Günther Anders's concept of "Promethean shame" and Daisaku Ikeda's philosophy of human education (ningen kyōiku). Drawing on neuroscientific evidence from MIT demonstrating that AI users exhibit reduced brain connectivity and "cognitive debt," the analysis reveals how AI tools undermine doctoral education. The study proposes an alternative framework emphasizing value creation through the cultivation of uniquely human capacities—intuition, meaning-making, and the poetic mind/heart/spirit (shigokoro)—that transcend algorithmic efficiency.

Authors

• Jessica Heybach, Western Michigan University

• Austin J. Pickup, Aurora University