You are protesting the wrong technology, people

Hollis Robbins argues that faculty protesting artificial intelligence are targeting the wrong technology: learning-management systems such as Canvas, Brightspace, and Blackboard have already reshaped education in ways more damaging than AI. These platforms, she says, prioritize documentation for accreditation over teaching, turning courses into trackable modules and making students’ primary contact with instruction a screen rather than a professor. They can weaken memory by storing deadlines and course information, encourage passive learning and grade fixation, and collect detailed records of students’ activity without meaningful consent. Robbins also emphasizes the commercial stakes: private-equity ownership puts extensive educational data - including grades, messages, and browsing histories - in corporate hands. She cites a breach that exposed personal information and private messages belonging to millions of users.

The criticism extends to faculty habits and institutional incentives. Canvas makes it easy to reuse course shells, automate grading, and run courses with little preparation, which Robbins says can encourage stale materials and reduced teaching effort. Its convenience helps explain why instructors tolerate a system they may recognize as harmful, while directing their anger toward AI. Robbins does not deny concerns about AI or the importance of writing, feedback, and human teaching; she argues that AI can also help people learn, whereas Canvas often displaces the conditions for learning. She challenges faculty who have organized against AI to protest learning-management systems with comparable urgency, and urges campuses to consider alternatives rather than accept surveillance and administrative convenience as inevitable.