{"podcast":{"title":"Human Restoration Project","slug":"human-restoration-project-331008","podcast_index_feed_id":331008,"rss_url":"https://feeds.zencastr.com/f/iQ46Dvpc.rss","website_url":"https://www.humanrestorationproject.org/","image_url":"https://media.zencastr.com/image-files/5c7838c8f83db700141c53b1/b24349c9-37e4-46c6-9882-ecd44bd1caf1.png","author":"chris@humanrestorationproject.org","episode_count":190,"summary":"Since 2018, the Human Restoration Project Podcast has reimaged education through critical, progressive, human-centered learning! Across nearly 200 episodes, and counting, we've explored every topic in education: ungrading and alternative assessment, interdisciplinary play-based and project-based learning, SEL, education reforms and systemic school change in society with students, teachers, leaders, researchers, and advocates around the world. Join us on our mission to restore humanity to education, together!","last_synced_at":"2026-07-19T12:17:44.713235+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/human-restoration-project-331008"},"episode":{"title":"BS Universities: The Future of Automated Education w/ Rob Sparrow & Gene Flenady","slug":"bs-universities-the-future-of-automated-education-w-rob-sparrow-gene-flenady","published_at":"2025-08-16T11:15:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/human-restoration-project-331008/bs-universities-the-future-of-automated-education-w-rob-sparrow-gene-flenady","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/human-restoration-project-331008","url":"https://zencastr.com/z/FG1tOvRL","audio_url":"https://redirect.zencastr.com/r/episode/689f60c6688be597245d724e/size/76445942/audio-files/5c7838c8f83db700141c53b1/d7870c95-592f-49b4-accf-16840a9ca881.mp3","summary":"\"Any assessment of the potential of AI to contribute to education must begin with an accurate understanding of the nature of the outputs of AI,\" my guests today write, \"The most important reason to resist the use of AI in universities if that its outputs are fundamentally bullshit – indeed, strictly speaking, they are meaningless bullshit.\" That particular term of art may appear to be attention-seeking or dismissive of the issue of AI entirely, but it's actually the root of a much deeper philosophical critique, like the late anthropologist David Graeber's notion of \"bullshit jobs\", but leveled at Generative AI and the way it distorts the purpose and function of teaching, learning, and education itself. My guests today are Robert Sparrow and Gene Flenady, professor and lecturer, respectively, in philosophy at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where they join me from, and they are collaborators on two recent articles: Bullshit universities: the future of automated education and Cut the bullshit: why Generative AI systems are neither collaborators nor tutors. As a heads up, we're gonna be saying bullshit a LOT, sometimes in an academic context, sometimes not so much. Bullshit universities: the future of automated education [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-025-02340-8] Cut the bullshit: why GenAI systems are neither collaborators nor tutors [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13562517.2025.2497263]","meta_description":"\"Any assessment of the potential of AI to contribute to education must begin with an accurate understanding of the nature of the outputs of AI,\" my guests…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3184,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/human-restoration-project-331008/episodes/bs-universities-the-future-of-automated-education-w-rob-sparrow-gene-flenady/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/human-restoration-project-331008/bs-universities-the-future-of-automated-education-w-rob-sparrow-gene-flenady.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}