Public universities are under constant threat of budget cuts, but somehow administrators find millions to toss at extractive tech, like ChatGPT Edu.

SF State professor Martha Kenney describes how administrators at the CSUs spent $17 million on a contract with OpenAI without asking students or professors if it was a good idea—subsidizing an industry built on hype and plaigiarism.

-

Martha Kenney and Martha Lincoln: "Let Them Eat Large Language Models: Artificial Intelligence And Austerity In The Neoliberal University"

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/6z5pa_v1

MIT Study

https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Business_2025_Report.pdf

Library of Babel Listserv

https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/assembly

Episode with Stop AI

https://www.patreon.com/posts/end-agi-before-127632638

Martha Lincoln: "It's Time to Pull the Plug on ChatGPT at Cal State"

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2025/11/25/chatgpt-poses-risk-student-mental-health-opinion

Martha Lincoln on BlueSky

https://bsky.app/profile/heavyredaction.bsky.social

-

Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco