Don't believe the hype. AI myths and the need for a critical approach in higher education

Synthesis: An editorial from the Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching that critically interrogates the hype surrounding AI and generative AI (GenAI) in higher education. The authors dismantle eight entrenched myths about AI — including its supposed autonomy, intelligence, objectivity, and inevitability — and argue that these technologies tend to exacerbate inequality, environmental degradation, labour precarity, and academic-integrity erosion. They call on higher-education intellectuals to embed AI Literacy into curricula and institutional practices as the corrective to uncritical technological optimism.

Key Findings

Eight myths, dismantled. The editorial systematically critiques eight prevailing myths that shape the AI discourse: (1) 'AI is artificial'; (2) 'AI is intelligent'; (3) 'AI will make the world a better place'; (4) 'AI is objective and unbiased'; (5) 'the US is the sole AI superpower and Big Tech holds quasi-monopolies'; (6) 'AI will not significantly affect the job market'; (7) 'AI revolutionises higher education'; and (8) 'teachers can reliably detect AI-generated work'. Each myth is presented with the claims of its proponents and then countered with critical evidence.

AI is neither artificial nor intelligent. Drawing on Crawford (2021), the authors contend AI is not inherently autonomous, intelligent, or objective but a product of human ingenuity built on vast, often exploitative labour — click workers, data annotators, and content moderators — and the wholesale scraping of human-generated, frequently copyrighted content. The term 'artificial intelligence' itself is framed as a marketing construct and 'empty signifier'.

Hype vs. harm to society and the environment. Contrary to claims that AI will engender a more democratic, equal, and sustainable world, the authors argue GenAI threatens democracy (deepfakes, targeted propaganda, automated disinformation), exacerbates inequality and the Digital Divide, and carries a heavy ecological footprint — from rare-mineral extractivism in the Global South to enormous energy and water consumption and offshored e-waste. AI is framed here as a source of AI Misuse Learning Harm at a societal scale.

Geopolitics and the myth of US dominance. The belief that the US exclusively dominates the AI arena is challenged by China's rapid ascent, illustrated by DeepSeek's open-source, low-cost reasoning model that disrupted markets in January 2025. This raises questions about access, control, and Governance — including the adequacy of US chip-export Regulation.

Higher education: erosion, not revolution. The claim that AI revolutionises higher education overlooks its detrimental effects on Academic Integrity and the erosion of evidence-based pedagogical practices, compounded by an existing crisis of higher education. Likewise, AI-detection is unreliable: models increasingly produce outputs indistinguishable from human work, undermining the belief that teachers can catch AI use with or without AI tools.

The corrective: critical AI literacy. The authors call on intellectuals in higher education to lead a transformative agenda — embedding AI Literacy as a graduate attribute, supported by Faculty Development, innovative assessment, and metacognitive initiatives. This is intended to equip learners to critically evaluate digital content, challenge techno-optimistic narratives, and ensure AI serves human insight and social justice rather than perpetuating Critical Thinking-eroding technological illusions.

Implications

The editorial positions Critical Thinking and AI Literacy as essential graduate competencies in an era where GenAI increasingly shapes academic, professional, and public discourse. For institutions, it recommends integrating critical AI literacy into course design and review processes and resisting profit-driven narratives from Big Tech. The paper also situates GenAI adoption within wider debates about Governance, equity, and the environmental and labour costs of AI infrastructure, arguing that technology should be a tool for enhancing human intelligence rather than replacing or diminishing it.

Connected Concepts

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Citation

Rudolph, J., Ismail, F., Tan, S., & Seah, P. (2025). Don't believe the hype. AI myths and the need for a critical approach in higher education. Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching, 8(1).