Dozens of professors from higher education institutions across the country have signed a manifesto against the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI), warning of the transformation of students into “digital idiots”.
“Promoting the humanisation of higher education and banning the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in teaching and learning processes” is the objective of the manifesto signed by 28 lecturers, who point to young generations being “the great victims of the digital world.”
When using AI, they say students’ “work and study methods are permanently buried by large language models and chatbots that operate as factories producing commonplaces, banalities, and technological architectures that promote fraud and serial plagiarism” – with the result that upcoming generations of students are being transformed into ‘digital idiots’.
“The mental health of students is at rock bottom, anxiety levels are soaring, and, transformed into digital idiots, they demonstrate very little intellectual curiosity or enthusiasm for the enormous and challenging adventure of knowledge,” says the manifesto.
The situation for teachers and professors “is no better.” They too are affected by the “digital deluge” – making it increasingly difficult for them to “accurately identify fraudulent academic practices.”
The manifesto criticises the stance of most institutions which, “fearing to miss the train of progress” have adopted what the 28 dub a “suicidal open-door policy” – limiting themselves to “regurgitating vague declarations of intent, guidelines, regulations, decrees, circulars, promoting conferences, workshops, and creating working groups with a tendency toward zero effectiveness.”
“If there are still genuine concerns about the future of students, but also of teachers and institutions, the path, narrow and not without risks, must necessarily involve the widespread suspension of the use of this type of tool in teaching and learning processes,” conclude signatories, which include Viriato Soromenho-Marques, retired Professor of Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon.
João Teixeira Lopes, full professor at the University of Porto, Elísio Estanque, retired associate professor at the University of Coimbra, and Raquel Varela, assistant professor with habilitation at the Nova University of Lisbon, are among the other signatories of the manifesto.
They all call for a ban on AI in universities and polytechnics, stressing the need to find “alternative paths and solutions” which do not replace the need for “effort, work and dedication” with a “thick cloak of ignorance, laziness, intellectual dishonesty, copying and speed“, impoverishing the ability to think.
Ema Pires, assistant professor at the University of Évora, Luíz Souta, retired coordinating professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, and Raúl Iturra, emeritus professor at ISCTE, have also signed the manifesto.
The risks of using AI in education are also a concern for the OECD, which today released the report “Digital Education Outlook 2026,” examining the latest global research on generative AI in education.
Based on a study conducted with American students, researchers concluded that students who completed assignments using a generative artificial intelligence tool achieved better grades, but very few were able to quote an excerpt from their work an hour after finishing it – unlike the vast majority of other students who had not used AI.
Coining a more 21st century version of the description ‘digital idiots’, the American study warns of “metacognitive laziness.”
Source: LUSA
