Don’t Ban AI on Campus
A cognitive scientist argues that universities should integrate AI into their curricula rather than banning it. The author suggests that fear of AI is similar to math anxiety and that adaptation is necessary for student success.
Why it matters
It addresses the critical debate regarding the role of generative AI in higher education and future workforce readiness.
Universities that hide from the technology will merely secure their irrelevance.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: SweetBunFactory / Getty ; Petrunine / Getty. September 5, 2026, 7 AM ET Share Save Students returning to campus this semester are arriving with a great deal of anxiety about AI and what it will mean for their lives after college. They are right to be worried. New research from Stanford shows that, even though the much-hyped AI job apocalypse has yet to materialize, the technology has already caused a nearly 20 percent drop in employment for young workers in AI-exposed occupations, such as computer programming and customer-service work.
Anxiety over the looming threat of AI may seem novel, but as a cognitive scientist who has long studied how fear affects learning and performance, I am all too familiar with this kind of unease. This is how I know it is also curable.
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