Navigating seas of change: Surfing higher education’s wild generative AI wave

Adoption of various generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies is inevitable in the long term, but earlier engagement will give educators a seat at the table to guide the tech towards supporting transformative adaptation rather than another race to the bottom favouring the lowest common denominator. This paper unpacks the diffusion of AI in higher education and the spectrum of discourse that has accompanied this timely and disruptive trend. It draws analogies with other socio-historical, technology-driven change moments in higher education, such as writing and study technologies, comparing reactive discourse from those moments with that happening presently around AI. The paper argues that these discourses have considerable impacts on teaching and learning beyond those of the tools themselves and recommends productive pathways for navigating the emerging technology landscape, now and into the future.1