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Deep Learning With The Wolf

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by Diana Wolf Torres

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Deep Learning with the Wolf helps you understand AI without the jargon. From breakthrough research to real-world applications, each episode translates complex technology into language humans can actually use. <a href="https://dianawolftorres.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">dianawolftorres.substack.com</a>

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May 30, 2026

Can San Francisco Come Back?

I live 79.8 miles from downtown San Francisco, which is to say: not close. I do not make the trip often, though I have managed it twice in the past month. The first time was May 4, for a Mandalorian preview event, because I am exactly the kind of nerd who will happily drive 160 miles for something like that. Then I went back again this past Sunday for Star Wars Day with the Giants. Yes, there is a pattern here. And yes, they won, so you’re welcome.Now my son is interviewing for jobs in San Francisco. That is where many of the robotics and AI jobs are. I’m thrilled for him. I’m also worried.Because the San Francisco he is entering is not the one I knew.When I moved to California in 1997, I lived in Sunnyvale and drove into the city whenever friends or family came to visit. I worried about turning onto one-way streets (OK, that still worries me) and creeping up absurdly steep hills with a stick shift. (Remember those days?) But, what I did not worry about was a smash-and-grab while sitting at a red light. That simply was not how I thought about San Francisco. I did not have to hide things in my “frunk.” My son, at almost 25, is coming of age in a different city and a different economy. San Francisco still offers high salaries, but it also demands some of the highest rents in the country.What changedFor a few years after the pandemic, San Francisco became the national shorthand for urban decline: empty offices, struggling retail, visible homelessness, and a downtown that seemed to lose its center of gravity when remote work emptied out office towers. The city’s downtown exodus was real, and it played out alongside older structural problems, especially housing scarcity and the long-running inability to build enough homes for the people who wanted to live there.And the homelessness problem is not a media invention. Every August, I take part in the Pistahan parade, which begins near San Francisco’s Civic Center. Arriving early in the morning for the event, I have seen some things along Hayes, Van Ness, and Market that I would rather not have seen. San Francisco was hit hard during the pandemic, and the population losses were real. More recent data suggests the city may be stabilizing, but not all the way back. The cleanest way to put it is this: San Francisco looks less like a city in collapse than a city in partial repair.AI is rebuilding the economic storyAI then gave San Francisco a new recovery narrative. Over the past five years, AI companies have leased more than 5 million square feet of office space in the city. According to the commercial real estate firm CBRE, AI companies could occupy as much as 16 million square feet by 2030. The larger point is not just that AI is spending money. It is that these companies are helping refill office towers and revive confidence that San Francisco still matters as a place where people need to gather in person.Money is only part of the story. The deeper advantage San Francisco still holds is density: researchers, founders, operators, and investors packed close enough to one another that ideas, deals, and careers can move faster. That dynamic helps explain the city’s strange duality in 2026. It can look frayed on the ground and still seem like the most important place to be for young people who want to work in AI or robotics.Why workers still hesitateBut economic recovery and lived experience are not the same thing. Reporting and worker anecdotes suggest a city where some people feel energized professionally and strained personally, especially by housing costs, visible street disorder, and uneven perceptions of safety. Even where crime data has improved from earlier highs, the emotional experience of walking through parts of downtown can still feel unstable to workers who are there every day.Housing remains the deeper structural problem. San Francisco’s affordability crisis predates the AI boom and outlasts it, which means even well-paid workers can find themselves priced out of what most Americans would consider a normal urban life. That tension is especially sharp for younger workers trying to enter the industry: the city offers career acceleration, but often at the cost of comfort, stability, or the feeling that you can actually build a life there.Robotics and AI need the city differentlyThis matters a little differently for AI companies than for robotics companies. AI firms can justify premium downtown office space because their core asset is concentrated human capital, and San Francisco still delivers that density better than almost anywhere else. Robotics companies benefit from the same talent pool, but often need more than proximity: lab space, testing space, industrial access, and a physical environment that supports building in the real world, not just talking about it.That distinction is worth watching. If San Francisco becomes an even more dominant headquarters city for AI while robotics spreads more across the wider Bay Area, then the geography of “future tech” may start to split in more visible ways. The software layer can thrive in towers. The physical layer may need a broader map.What is the San Francisco of 2026?For my generation, or at least for me, the city represented exploration. It was where you took visitors, where you wandered, where you tested yourself against steep hills, parallel parking, and reading paper maps that took you down one-way streets. (Or, at least that is my excuse and I am sticking to it.) It felt messy in the way cities do, but not menacing. For his generation, San Francisco may still represent ambition. It may still be the place where the future of AI and robotics is being built. But it also comes with a different set of calculations: where to live, what to avoid, whether to commute in, and whether the opportunity is worth the friction.That may be the clearest way to understand San Francisco in 2026. AI is helping revive the city as a place to work. The harder question is whether San Francisco can also remain, or become again, a place where people want to build a life.Editor’s Note: This podcast episode was generated with AI from my reporting, notes, and source documents, then reviewed and edited by me before publication. Because the hosts are AI-generated, they may occasionally mispronounce words, names, or acronyms.Additional Reading for Inquisitive Minds:* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/what-happened-to-san-francisco-really">Nathan Heller, “What Happened to San Francisco, Really?” — </a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/what-happened-to-san-francisco-really">The New Yorker</a> — A strong narrative overview of how housing dysfunction, remote work, and politics fed San Francisco’s post-pandemic crisis.* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cbre.com/insights/briefs/artificial-intelligence-the-next-catalyst-for-office-space-demand">CBRE, “Artificial Intelligence: The Next Catalyst for Office Space Demand”</a> — One of the clearest reports on how AI companies are driving office demand in San Francisco, including the projection that they could occupy up to 16 million square feet by 2030.* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cbre.com/press-releases/ai-boom-drives-office-leasing-surge-in-san-francisco-bay-area">CBRE, “AI Boom Drives Office Leasing Surge in San Francisco Bay Area”</a> — Useful for readers tracking how AI leasing is reshaping the city’s commercial real estate market.* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.kqed.org/news/12038968/californias-population-rebounding-san-francisco-different-story">KQED, “California’s Population Is Rebounding. In San Francisco, It’s a Different Story.”</a> — A good overview of why San Francisco’s population recovery has lagged, with housing affordability as a central factor.* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sf-population-decline-20307611.php">San Francisco Chronicle, “SF’s population drops again as city struggles to retain residents”</a> — Useful for readers who want a more recent local snapshot of the city’s continuing population losses.* <a target="_blank" href="https://vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/indicators/population">MTC Vital Signs, “Population — SF Bay Area”</a> — A regional data source for Bay Area population trends that helps place San Francisco in a broader context.* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sf.gov/data--office-vacancy-rate">San Francisco Government, “Office Vacancy Rate”</a> — The city’s own vacancy tracker, helpful for verifying just how much downtown office space remains unfilled.* <a target="_blank" href="https://abc7news.com/post/san-franciscos-union-square-showing-signs-recovery-challenges-remain/19009160/">ABC7 News, “San Francisco’s Union Square showing signs of recovery, challenges remain”</a> — A useful look at downtown retail recovery and why “better” does not yet mean “fixed.”* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sf.gov/reports--september-2024--2024-point-time-count">San Francisco Government, “2024 Point-in-Time Count”</a> — The city’s official homelessness count, which is essential for grounding any discussion of visible disorder in actual data.* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11986620/san-francisco-homelessness-up-7-despite-decline-in-street-camping">KQED, “San Francisco Homelessness Up 7% Despite Decline in Street Camping”</a> — A helpful companion to the city report because it explains the numbers in plain language and highlights the complexity behind them.#SanFrancisco #AIIndustry #Robotics #TechWorkers#DeepLearningWithTheWolf This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://dianawolftorres.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">dianawolftorres.substack.com</a>

May 21, 2026

The AI Backlash on Campus Is About Jobs, Not Technology.

At college commencements across the U.S. this spring, a strange new ritual emerged: mention AI, and you might get booed. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was heckled at the University of Arizona after telling graduates that AI would touch “every profession, every classroom, every home,” and similar reactions followed at other ceremonies when speakers framed AI as the next industrial revolution or as an unavoidable new order.The Ritual of RejectionIt would be easy to read those clips as a simple rejection of technology. But, young people are not turning away from AI in practice. They are using it heavily for schoolwork, search, summarization, creativity, and, increasingly, news.What they are rejecting is something narrower: institutional hype and a tone-deaf insistence that they should celebrate the very systems that seem to be shrinking their runway into the job world.The Usage Data Tells a Different StoryPew Research’s latest survey shows how deeply AI is already embedded in teen life. About two-thirds of U.S. teens say they use AI chatbots, and 57% use them to search for information while 54% use them for schoolwork. Around half use them for fun or entertainment, and meaningful minorities use them to summarize media, create images or videos, get news, or even seek conversation and emotional support. Reuters and other recent coverage suggest that among young adults, usage is even more normalized, especially as AI becomes folded into study habits, job applications, and everyday digital workflows.Mandatory, Transformative, and Career-Ending — All at OnceAnd yet, the more integrated AI becomes in young people’s lives, the more ambivalent many of them seem to feel about it. This reflects the reality of a generation being told, all at once, that AI is mandatory, transformative, and potentially career-ending. The same systems they are expected to master for homework and work readiness are also being pitched by executives as replacements for entry-level labor.What the Numbers Actually ShowThat anxiety is showing up not only in surveys, but in public rituals. Axios reports that 42% of Gen Z in the Axios Harris poll believe AI will hurt job opportunities and wages for their generation, while the Associated Press cites polling showing around 70% of college students view AI as a threat to their career prospects. When commencement speakers deliver cheerful “embrace the future” lines to students graduating into that mood, the dissonance can be immediate and loud.It’s the Tone, Not the TopicStill, the backlash is not universal.NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang spoke about AI at Carnegie Mellon and was not booed; instead, his remarks took on a more constructive tone because they acknowledged students’ anxiety and framed AI as a tool they needed to learn rather than as a force that would simply sweep over them. This photo captures the crowd’s reaction to Huang.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/yann-lecun/">Yann LeCun</a>, who spoke at NYU’s engineering graduation, noted in a LinkedIn thread that when he talked about AI he was cheered, not booed.That suggests students are not rejecting every technical discussion of AI. They are reacting to tone, context, and whether the speaker sounds like they are actually listening.The Ladder That Got Pulled UpThe boos did not come from nowhere. ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott told a March conference audience that new-college-graduate unemployment could hit 30% within two years as AI absorbs entry-level white-collar work. The Dallas Federal Reserve found the unemployment gap between entry-level and experienced workers had widened sharply in occupations exposed to AI substitution. Anthropic’s CEO has publicly forecast that AI could eliminate up to half of all entry-level white-collar jobsThe Youth ReactionA TikTok thread about the boos garnered a lot of discussion from teens and graduates.Pulling some of the reactions from the TikTok users on the thread, here is a compilation of what the young respondents had to say:“Anna”, a TikTok user, cut through the media framing in seven words: “It’s NOT fear. It’s frustration, anger and disgust.”Jo landed the sharpest irony of the entire debate: “’It’s a tool’ — that students get failed for using.”“Kelso” pushed back on the press coverage directly: “It shouldn’t really be reduced to ‘being a trend.’ This is a case of people showing and expressing their actual real life emotions. They are booing out of authenticity, not because they are participating in a trend.”C cubed named the economic logic underneath it: “The boos are because AI is not being used to benefit workers by alleviating conditions — but used to replace workers. Streamlining efficiency really means layoffs.”Tommy Joe went furthest: “It’s not even AI that bothers me. It’s the smugness. Because none of these people built it alone. Thousands of engineers, coders, thinkers, and workers gave them the kingdom they’re standing on.”Those comments are not outliers. They are the survey data with the filter removed.The “kids hate AI” framing, while catchy, is too blunt. What comes through in the threads, the polling, and the commencement footage is not blanket rejection. These are people who use AI daily, who are learning to build with it, who depend on it for schoolwork and job applications. What they hate is the packaging: hype without accountability, convenience without consent, productivity without a social contract.Employers still say they need talent. But the demand is concentrated in execution-heavy roles in controls, integration, and systems deployment, not the broad entry-level positions fresh graduates trained for. From where a new grad is standing, that looks less like a revolution and more like a bait-and-switch: train for the future, arrive to find the entry ramps have quietly narrowed.The European PerspectiveMy fellow creator, the talented <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinodonovan/">Kevin O’Donovan</a>, commented to me: “... at Hannover Messe a couple of weeks back, this came up in a number of conversations with people I was out and about with. There’s a real conundrum here. On one hand, there is clearly a skilled worker shortage. On the other, some entry-level recruitment seems to be slowing down because companies are asking, “Can AI do some of this?”But that creates a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. Where do you get the new blood, and how do you develop them to be skilled in the future?”Infrastructure That Has to Earn ItThe commencement backlash is less a rejection of AI than a reaction to the way it is being presented. The students booing in Arizona, Florida, and Tennessee are not outside the technology ecosystem. They are already using these systems every day for school, research, creativity, and work. But they are also graduating into an economy where many entry-level pathways suddenly feel unstable, narrowed, or uncertain.That helps explain why some speakers were booed while others were applauded. Ro Khanna at Suffolk University, Jensen Huang at Carnegie Mellon, and Steve Wozniak at Grand Valley State all acknowledged the anxiety in the room instead of talking past it. The response students seem to want is not blind optimism or blanket reassurance. It is honesty.The Class of 2026 is not rejecting technology. If anything, this may be the most AI-literate graduating class yet. What they appear to be rejecting is the idea that they should celebrate disruption without being allowed to question who benefits from it, who absorbs the cost, and what happens to the people trying to enter the workforce as the ground shifts beneath them.Additional Resources for Inquisitive Minds* The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It – The Verge Explores the “power user but skeptic” dynamic among Gen Z and younger workers. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/920401/gen-z-ai">https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/920401/gen-z-ai</a>* How Teens Use and View AI – Pew Research Center Deep dive on how U.S. teens are actually using AI chatbots, what they find helpful, and what worries them. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/02/24/how-teens-use-and-view-ai/">https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/02/24/how-teens-use-and-view-ai/</a>* Teens, Parents and AI – Coverage of the Pew Survey Accessible summary of the same data with emphasis on the teen–parent perception gap. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-teens-parents-pew-survey/">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-teens-parents-pew-survey/</a>* AI Bots Are Coming. The Young Are Booing, Not Applauding – Reuters Looks at how younger workers see AI at work and in the economy, and why optimism is fading. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/ai-bots-are-coming-young-are-booing-not-applauding-2026-05-20/">https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/ai-bots-are-coming-young-are-booing-not-applauding-2026-05-20/</a>* The New College Graduation Ritual: Booing AI – Axios Round‑up of this year’s AI‑themed commencement speeches, the booing, and fresh polling data. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.axios.com/2026/05/19/college-graduates-ai-commencement-speech">https://www.axios.com/2026/05/19/college-graduates-ai-commencement-speech</a>* Graduates Are Booing Pep Talks on AI at College Commencements – AP News Adds reporting on polling that shows how many students see AI as a threat to their job prospects. <a target="_blank" href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-college-commencement-anxiety-boo-35aec9bac660eaeb05c5b8d392db2cac">https://apnews.com/article/ai-college-commencement-anxiety-boo-35aec9bac660eaeb05c5b8d392db2cac</a>* The Villain of This Year’s Commencement Speeches: A.I. – The New York Times Puts this year’s AI discourse in the context of past graduation “villains” and generational anxiety. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/business/dealbook/university-commencement-speech-ai.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/business/dealbook/university-commencement-speech-ai.html</a>* “Your Career Starts at the Beginning of the AI Revolution” – Jensen Huang at CMU NVIDIA’s CEO addresses Carnegie Mellon’s Class of 2026 with a very different AI message. <a target="_blank" href="https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-ceo-carnegie-mellon-commencement-address/">https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-ceo-carnegie-mellon-commencement-address/</a>* Axios: “Run, Don’t Walk Toward AI,” Says Jensen Huang News write‑up and key quotes from the CMU commencement address. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.axios.com/2026/05/11/jensen-huang-carnegie-mellon-commencement-ai">https://www.axios.com/2026/05/11/jensen-huang-carnegie-mellon-commencement-ai</a>* How Teens Use and View AI – Full PDF Report (Pew) For readers who want the charts, methodology, and question wording. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/PI_2026.02.24_Teens-and-AI_REPORT.pdf">https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/PI_2026.02.24_Teens-and-AI_REPORT.pdf</a>* “The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It” – r/technology Thread A long public discussion that captures how tech‑savvy young users are talking about AI day‑to‑day. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1szusu6/the_more_young_people_use_ai_the_more_they_hate_it/">https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1szusu6/the_more_young_people_use_ai_the_more_they_hate_it/</a>* “The Kids Hate AI” – r/ArtificialInteligence Thread Another ground‑level look at how younger creatives and engineers are responding to AI tools. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtificialInteligence/comments/1pwvhg2/the_kids_hate_ai/">https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtificialInteligence/comments/1pwvhg2/the_kids_hate_ai/</a>* Eric Schmidt Lawsuit Coverage – Los Angeles Times Overview of the civil lawsuit alleging sexual assault and digital surveillance, and its procedural status. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-06/former-google-chiefs-spying-sex-assault-lawsuit-sent-to-arbitration">https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-06/former-google-chiefs-spying-sex-assault-lawsuit-sent-to-arbitration</a>* NVIDIA Blog & Business Insider Coverage of Jensen Huang’s Message to Grads More context on how one of AI’s most prominent CEOs talks about opportunity and fear. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jensen-huang-graduation-speech-ai-jobs-anxiety-2026-5">https://www.businessinsider.com/jensen-huang-graduation-speech-ai-jobs-anxiety-2026-5</a>Recent videos by DROIDS Newsletter:Fun fact: The interviewer in this video, Alex Torres, is part of the class of 2026.Listen to this article as a discussion: (AI-generated hosts. Created using Google’s NotebookLM technology)#AIBacklash #ClassOf2026 #Automation #EntryLevelJobs #TechEthics #DROIDSNewsletter #DeepLearningWithTheWolf This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://dianawolftorres.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">dianawolftorres.substack.com</a>

February 27, 2026

The Offline Classroom

Jason Roche first sensed something was off when the essays began arriving in unusually pristine form.“I just started realizing wow, this is really nicely written,” he told me. “I didn’t realize and then I started saying wait a second. This looks eerily similar to this [other] student’s report.”The shift was subtle at first, then unmistakable. It was 2023, and ChatGPT had quietly entered the academic bloodstream.Students were pasting assignment prompts into the chatbot and submitting what it produced. The prose was coherent, confident, and grammatically sound. It often read as if it had been drafted by someone just slightly more polished than the student who turned it in. And yet something was missing.“Oftentimes very general, not precisely answering the questions as they were written,” Roche said.Roche, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Detroit Mercy, does not consider himself a technophobe. He teaches media. He experiments with new tools. But he recognized that this was not merely another productivity aid. It altered the basic relationship between effort and outcome.For a brief moment, he believed he could stay one step ahead.The Ozzy Osbourne TestAt first, Roche relied on instinct. The essays were polished, almost too polished, and they shared a curious sameness of tone. But suspicion alone would not hold up in a grade dispute. He needed proof.After consulting a colleague in cybersecurity, he devised a quiet experiment. He embedded hidden instructions in white font within his assignment documents, invisible to students reading the page but visible to AI systems parsing the full text.One assignment asked students to analyze deepfake videos. Buried within it was a directive to include a discussion of Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark at the Moon album cover.The album, of course, has nothing to do with deepfakes.“And so sure enough, I would see these essays with reference to Ozzy Osbourne’s album cover and I’m like, yep, they’re using it. They’re not doing their own work, and so they had to fail.”For a time, the strategy worked. Essays arrived complete with heavy metal detours, uncritically inserted by students who had never noticed the hidden instruction. The trap had confirmed what he suspected.But the advantage was temporary. As generative models improved, they began flagging the embedded text themselves.“Now, the models say: ‘This appears to be something different from the assignment.’”The software had learned to recognize the trick. And so Roche, like many educators navigating this new terrain, adjusted his strategy again.The Blue Book CounteroffensiveIn response, Roche did something that would have seemed regressive only a few years ago.He went back to paper.“I used to do a lot of my quizzes online using the Learning Management System known as Blackboard,” he said. “But, this year, I switched back to paper in the classroom quizzes.”The change was immediate and measurable.“I found that the grades have dropped by at least 50 %.”The explanation was not mysterious. Online quizzes had quietly allowed students to consult generative tools while completing assignments. Paper did not.What surprised him more than the drop in scores was the reaction.“They’re coming up to me all nervous, like, wait, how do I study for this when I read the chapter?”The question revealed something deeper than exam anxiety. It suggested a rupture in study habits themselves. Without search bars, summaries, or instant clarification from a chatbot, students were left alone with the text.Roche’s advice sounded almost antique: read it through once, then go back and highlight key passages. Take notes. Sit with it.It was not a new method. It was the old one. But in the absence of digital scaffolding, it felt unfamiliar, as if the mechanics of learning had to be rediscovered.“Whoever Does the Work Does the Learning”Roche often returns to a phrase he first heard through his university’s teaching center, a line that has taken on new weight in the age of generative AI.“Whoever does the work does the learning.”The sentence sounds almost self-evident, the kind of pedagogical truism that rarely requires defense. Yet a substantial body of cognitive research gives it empirical grounding. In 1978, psychologists Norman Slamecka and Peter Graf demonstrated what became known as the “generation effect”: individuals remember information more reliably when they produce it themselves rather than simply read it. Subsequent work by Robert and Elizabeth Bjork on “desirable difficulties” further showed that effortful processing, the kind that feels slower and more demanding in the moment, strengthens long-term retention and transfer.Learning, in other words, is not merely exposure to information. It is the act of grappling with it.Generative AI complicates this equation. It does not remove effort from the system; it shifts where that effort occurs. The machine parses, synthesizes, drafts. The student reviews, edits, perhaps lightly reshapes.What becomes uncertain is where the intellectual strain resides. And if cognitive growth depends on that strain, the question is no longer whether AI is efficient, but whether the efficiency comes at the cost of the very process that makes learning durable.Is It Time to Unplug Classrooms?It would be tempting to frame this as simply another chapter in the ChatGPT saga. A new tool appears, students misuse it, professors adapt. The familiar cycle of technological disruption.But Roche said something during our conversation that shifted the scale of the question.“I think universities might have to create insulated classrooms that are completely cut off from the internet unless you’re plugged into a cable. So they can’t get their signal on their smart glasses. They can’t get their signal on a watch to look something up. And they’re going to have to do the work without access to the internet. I think that could be something that we have to go to.”He was not describing a policy tweak or a new paragraph in a syllabus. He was describing infrastructure. Walls that block signals. Rooms designed not for connectivity, but for its absence.An insulated classroom is more than a disciplinary measure. It is an architectural acknowledgment that constant access may be incompatible with certain kinds of thinking.And once you follow that logic, the story no longer belongs to one professor or one campus. It becomes part of a broader reconsideration of what a learning environment is supposed to provide: unlimited information, or protected attention.The Global ReversalAcross Europe, governments are pulling back from screen-saturated schooling.🇳🇱 NetherlandsAs of January 2024, the Dutch government implemented a nationwide ban on mobile phones and most smart devices in secondary school classrooms. A government evaluation reported that 75 percent of secondary schools observed improved student focus after the ban, and 28 percent reported improved academic outcomes. (Source: Dutch Ministry of Education evaluation, reported in The Guardian, July 2025.)🇫🇮 FinlandFinland passed legislation restricting mobile phone use during the school day, allowing devices only with explicit teacher permission or for health reasons, citing concerns about concentration and classroom environment. (Source: Finnish Parliament education reforms, reported April 2025.)🇸🇪 SwedenSweden has committed to implementing a nationwide mobile phone ban in compulsory schools starting in 2026, alongside increased investment in printed textbooks and structured reading time. Swedish officials have explicitly described earlier screen-heavy policies as a miscalculation. (Source: Swedish Ministry of Education announcements, 2025.)OECD DataThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported in its 2024 working paper Students, Digital Devices, and Success that frequent digital distractions during class are associated with lower performance in mathematics across PISA-participating countries. The OECD does not call for blanket bans but acknowledges that limiting distractions can support learning outcomes.The larger pattern is unmistakable.After a decade of 1:1 devices, always-on platforms, and pandemic-forced virtual schooling, multiple countries are recalibrating.Not abandoning technology.Rebalancing it.Pandemic Learning Loss and Screen SaturationThe U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported significant declines in math and reading scores following pandemic-era remote learning. There is a new scrutiny about fully online learning models.Meanwhile, meta-analyses of mobile phone use in classrooms across European systems have found consistent associations between in-class phone access and lower academic outcomes.None of this proves that screens cause cognitive decline.But it does undermine the once-unquestioned assumption that more technology automatically improves learning.The Dual-Track FutureAnd yet Roche is not calling for a technological purge. He is not nostalgic for chalk dust or hostile to innovation. If anything, his proposal is more structured than reactionary.If he were designing a university from scratch, he said, he would preserve the classical core.“I would kind of want to… require them to do the traditional work. Take the traditional classical philosophy history courses… I would want to keep that separate, and then I would want to have a time where we require them to work with AI.”In his view, the two should not dissolve into one another. Foundational study, philosophy, history, sustained reading, long-form writing, would remain intact and protected as the place where habits of mind are formed. Alongside it would sit deliberate instruction in artificial intelligence: how to prompt it, how to question it, how to deploy it without surrendering judgment.AI would function as an instrument. Human cognition would remain the anchor.The goal would not be fusion for its own sake, but balance. Each domain would sharpen the other, without erasing the boundary that gives it meaning.The Larger QuestionIf universities begin designing classrooms without wireless access, if European governments continue banning phones during the school day, if printed textbooks quietly reclaim space once surrendered to tablets and learning platforms, then something larger may be underway.We may be witnessing not a rejection of technology, but a reconsideration of constant connectivity as an educational ideal.For more than a decade, the assumption was that frictionless access to information would naturally improve learning. That more devices meant more engagement. That always-on networks meant progress.But learning has never been frictionless. It demands effort, repetition, attention, and at times, discomfort.“Whoever does the work does the learning.”In an era when generative systems can produce essays, summaries, and study guides in seconds, that statement feels less like common sense and more like a quiet act of defiance.Vocabulary Key* Generation Effect — The cognitive phenomenon where self-generated information is better remembered than passively received information.* Model Collapse — Degradation in AI performance when trained on synthetic rather than human-generated data.Additional Reading for Inquisitive Minds:National Center for Education Statistics. National Assessment of Educational Progress, U.S. Dept. of Education, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/Shumailov, Ilia, et al. “<a target="_blank" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493">The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget.</a>” arXiv, 2023, <a target="_blank" href="http://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493">arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493</a>.Slamecka, N. J., & Graf, P. (1978). The generation effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4(6), 592–604. <a target="_blank" href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.4.6.592">https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.4.6.592</a>UNESCO. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/guidance-generative-ai-education-and-research">Guidance for Generative AI in Education and Research</a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/guidance-generative-ai-education-and-research">.</a> UNESCO, 2023, <a target="_blank" href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000386693">unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000386693</a>.<a target="_blank" href="https://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/news/netherlands-ban-mobile-phones-classroom">“Netherlands: A Ban on Mobile Phones in the Classroom.</a>” Eurydice – European Commission, 25 June 2025, <a target="_blank" href="http://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/news/netherlands-ban-mobile-phones-classroom.">eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/news/netherlands-ban-mobile-phones-classroom.</a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260128-sweden-plans-to-ban-mobile-phones-in-schools">Sweden Plans to Ban Model Phones in Schools</a>. France24. January 24, 2025.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.government.se/press-releases/2024/06/serious-issue-that-30-of-pupils-distracted-by-mobile-phones-during-lessons/">“Swedish Government Proposes Nationwide School Phone Ban</a>.” Government Offices of Sweden (English press release), 3 June 2024.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ACoAAAELDlwBET7IChOFEi15Fqpgl4VcsL3op38?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_miniProfile%3AACoAAAELDlwBET7IChOFEi15Fqpgl4VcsL3op38">Jason Roche</a> is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Detroit Mercy. His work aims to prepare students for a future where critical thinking and ethical AI use are paramount. He is also a documentary filmmaker and a former news anchor and reporter.#aiethics #aiineducation This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://dianawolftorres.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">dianawolftorres.substack.com</a>

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