FAQ on LLMs

Is generative AI acceptable in higher education? How can/should it be resisted?

• https://alinautrata.substack.com/p/the-anti-dystopians-guide-to-genai (archive) - The Anti-Dystopian's Guide to GenAI for students & educators - What is GenAI, Why is it Bad, and How Can Higher Education Resist It?
• amplifying popularity effects among scientists: https://www.jeffpooley.com/2025/11/the-matthew-effect-in-ai-summary (archive) - The Matthew Effect in AI Summary by Jeff Pooley
• pollution of supposedly peer-reviewed literature - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.09.25335401v1.full - Dramatic increases in redundant publications in the Generative AI era by Danny Maupin, Tulsi Suchak, Adrian Barnett, Matt Spick
• student cheating on essays:
  • https://gizmodo.com/ai-cheating-is-so-out-of-hand-in-americas-schools-that-the-blue-books-are-coming-back-2000607771
  • https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html

Are LLM data centres accelerating the climate emergency?

• https://greenscreen.network/en/blog/within-bounds-limiting-ai-environmental-impact Within Bounds: Limiting AI's environmental impact by Green Screen Coalition, Green Web Foundation, Beyond Fossil Fuels, Aspiration, critical infrastructure lab and signed by 130+ organisations
• Yes. By 2028, "AI alone could consume as much electricity annually as 22% of all US households" - "between 165 and 326 terawatt-hours per year" https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech (archive) - We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here's the story you haven’t heard. by James O'Donnell, Casey Crownhart, May 2025

Truth

Which is more accurate: LLM hallucinations vs bullshit vs not making assertions?

• WikipediaEn:Hallucination_%28artificial_intelligence%29 versus
• WikipediaEn:On_Bullshit versus
• not making assertions - https://fediscience.org/@UlrikeHahn/114932221763940313 (archive) + https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/pfjzu

Are LLMs guaranteed to generate false statements?

• https://www.computerworld.com/article/4059383/openai-admits-ai-hallucinations-are-mathematically-inevitable-not-just-engineering-flaws.html

Factual accuracy versus political persuasion

• ArXiv:2507.13919 - The Levers of Political Persuasion with Conversational AI by Kobi Hackenburg, Ben M. Tappin, Luke Hewitt, Ed Saunders, Sid Black, Hause Lin, Catherine Fist, Helen Margetts, David G. Rand, Christopher Summerfield

Are LLMs forcing human language evolution?

• Yes: ArXiv:2409.01754 - Empirical evidence of Large Language Model's influence on human spoken communication by Hiromu Yakura, Ezequiel Lopez-Lopez, Levin Brinkmann, Ignacio Serna, Prateek Gupta, Ivan Soraperra, Iyad Rahwan

Multi-question

• https://www.wheresyoured.at/how-to-argue-with-an-ai-booster
• https://blog.glyph.im/2025/06/i-think-im-done-thinking-about-genai-for-now.html