Along with seeking $24.5 million to saddle faculty, staff, and students with artificial intelligence, the South Dakota Board of Regents has adopted a new policy directing its institutions and inmates to “apply ethical use” of AI “in a manner that aligns with the goals and mission of the Regental system and the institution, as well as the academic discipline.” New Policy 7.9 directs faculty specifically to put “course-specific expectations around the use of AI” in their syllabi.
The Regents’ strategic plan does say something about the goal of “student success” and “quality educational experience”, so the most ethical and mission-aligned AI-expectations profs could syllabize for their students would be, “Don’t be stupid: don’t use AI“:
An MIT study published earlier this year found that students who used AI to help write an essay showed lower brain activity compared to the students who didn’t. Alarmingly, the AI group struggled to quote their own essays, and when they were later asked to write a paper without AI help, their brain activity stayed at a reduced level. Mirroring those findings, other studies have showed that AI impairs critical thinking and have associated it with memory loss [Frank Landymore, “The Results of Middle and High School Students Using AI Are Extremely Ominous,” Futurism, 2026.08.22].
If our universities are committed to building brain power, the Regents need to spend some of their $24.5M on signal blockers, chatbot filters… and extra blue books and pencils.