SUNY Sets Systemwide AI Policy

Oh, marvellous. SUNY, the sprawling 64-campus giant, has unveiled its 'systemwide AI policy'—a document that manages to be both ambitious and vacuously reassuring at the same time. The plan: expand AI use in teaching and student support, require training for all faculty and students, embed 'AI literacy' into general education requirements, and mandate every campus produce its own detailed guidelines by December 31. Because nothing says 'thoughtful adoption' like a top-down deadline from the chancellor's office, with the subtle implication that if you don't have your AI strategy in order by New Year's Eve, you're behind the curve.

The policy's central tension is almost too perfect to skewer: on one hand, it enthusiastically embraces AI as a tool for 'student success' and 'academic innovation'; on the other, it acknowledges the need for 'responsible use' and 'literacy.' It's like a restaurant that hands you a knife and then gives you a pamphlet on knife safety. The training requirement is particularly rich—we're going to train students and faculty to use AI 'ethically' in the same semester we're telling them to use it for everything from grading to drafting syllabi. Meanwhile, the AI itself remains a hallucination-prone, bias-amplifying black box that has already convinced some users it's sentient.

And then there's the deadline: December 31. Because the end of the calendar year—when everyone is on holiday, inboxes are clogged with year-end nonsense, and the last thing anyone wants is a 50-page guideline document—is the perfect time to roll out sweeping changes. One can already picture the frantic December 30th Zoom meetings, where campus AI task forces hastily copy-paste policies from other SUNY schools, hoping nobody notices the recycled boilerplate. By January, the guidelines will be filed away, forgotten, and the AI will continue doing exactly what it was doing before—just with more paperwork. Tremendous.