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Main Author: Schwerzmann, Katia
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03513
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author Schwerzmann, Katia
author_facet Schwerzmann, Katia
contents This paper explores the implications of universities' rapid adoption of large language models (LLMs) for studying, teaching, and research by analyzing the logics underpinning their representation space. It argues that by uncritically adopting LLMs, the University surrenders its autonomy to a field of heteronomy, that of generative AI, whose norms are not democratically shaped. Unlike earlier forms of rule-based AI, which sought to exclude human judgment and interpretation, generative AI's new normative rationality is explicitly based on the automation of moral judgment, valuation, and interpretation. By integrating LLMs into pedagogical and research contexts before establishing a critical framework for their use, the University subjects itself to being governed by contingent, ever-evolving, and domain-non-specific norms that structure the model's virtual representation space and thus everything it generates.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_03513
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Ruled by the Representation Space: On the University's Embrace of Large Language Models
Schwerzmann, Katia
Computers and Society
This paper explores the implications of universities' rapid adoption of large language models (LLMs) for studying, teaching, and research by analyzing the logics underpinning their representation space. It argues that by uncritically adopting LLMs, the University surrenders its autonomy to a field of heteronomy, that of generative AI, whose norms are not democratically shaped. Unlike earlier forms of rule-based AI, which sought to exclude human judgment and interpretation, generative AI's new normative rationality is explicitly based on the automation of moral judgment, valuation, and interpretation. By integrating LLMs into pedagogical and research contexts before establishing a critical framework for their use, the University subjects itself to being governed by contingent, ever-evolving, and domain-non-specific norms that structure the model's virtual representation space and thus everything it generates.
title Ruled by the Representation Space: On the University's Embrace of Large Language Models
topic Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03513