Editors’ Summary: In this post, Alex Reid critiques the reliance on instructional design and “design thinking” to counter the frictionless nature of AI in higher education. Challenging the popular notion of “engineering friction” into curriculum, he argues that reducing learning to predictable outcomes merely creates automated “work” that AI easily replicates. Reid contends that AI hasn’t caused these pedagogical frailties but has instead exposed the systemic limitations of treating education as a technical problem to be solved. Ultimately, he cautions that the profound changes AI brings to human experience cannot be managed by rigid institutional designs.
Editors’ Choice: the friction embedded in AI educational designs
