Bargaining with the Devil: OpenAI and the CSU
On February 4, 2025, the California State University (CSU) Chancellor’s Office announced an initiative to become the first “AI-powered” university system in the nation. The 18-month contract with OpenAI to provide ChatGPT EDU to students, faculty, and staff is reported to cost nearly $17 million1,2.
The initiative will provide free AI tools and training to all 450, 000 students and 63,000 faculty and staff across CSU’s 23 campuses3. It was designed to satisfy workforce demands in high-growth sectors like technology, healthcare, and manufacturing, aligning with California’s economic priorities4.
CSU’s stated goal in its press release is to ensure that students in the nation’s largest and most diverse public university system have equitable access to the technology.5. Nearly half of CSU’s students are low-income, and about 30% are the first in their families to attend college6.
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OpenAI stands to increase its power and wealth through this contract with the CSU. According to Igor Venturelli, an industry insider with an online presence, the corporation has forged infrastructural agreements with many of the largest players on the technology stage7:
“The artificial intelligence (AI) landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, with OpenAI at the epicenter of this transformation. Through strategic partnerships with major tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle, OpenAI is solidifying its position as a dominant force in the AI market.”
OpenAI has a complex history as a corporation. Elon Musk, among the founders of OpenAI in 2015 who left OpenAI in 2018, sued OpenAI in a San Francisco court, alleging that Altman violated “…OpenAI’s founding mission to develop AI safely and for the benefit of humanity.”8
The sentiment that AI is just the next big tech thing which will pass like all the others is wrong. The smart money believes otherwise:9
“While the AI race is inadvertently contributing to inflation through its energy demand, it has driven all market competitors to innovate at an unprecedented pace. It jolted the AI field by a few years, and we are unlikely to see any momentum shift or trough of disillusionment like every other technological fad.”
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An email from the California Faculty Association (CFA) to which I am privvy vigorously asserts that the union will resist this initiative as a violation of the faculty contract. In the CSU, the Academic Senate made up of elected professors representing their colleagues have control of the curriculum.
The issue raised by the union has little to do with AI per se. The uproar is less about whether AI will destroy critical thinking, for example, than it is about who has control of teaching and learning. The email is very clear. The concern is with usurpation of faculty prerogatives. From the email:
“We know many of you already have deep concerns about artificial intelligence even as many seek to integrate and leverage it in your teaching and research. However, this latest message is hardly an invitation to investigate and collaborate on the potentials and risks of an emerging technology. Instead, it is a full-frontal attack on our core mission: teaching the working people of California and producing an educated and informed citizenry necessary for a healthy democracy.”
Some faculty predict that the initiative will pit STEM disciplines against the Humanities. Others are outraged that the university is being co-opted by corporate people, diminishing the role of the university from scholarship to career preparation. In California, students are prepared in high school to be “college and career ready.”
Universities across the country are watching this drama unfold with optimism and with bitterness. Market-driven forces penetrating the tradition of the Academic Senate with machine intelligence in the largest university system in the nation marks an erosion of academic respect and freedom. The battle is among humans about human issues.
This narrative promises to be an epic battle. I shall keep it on my radar and post again when I learn more.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/csu-ai-university-education-20158671.php;
https://inlandempiregia.org/gia-education-report-ai-in-csu-classrooms-student-data-lawsuit-and-academic-decathlon-champions/
https://news.sonoma.edu/article/csu-announces-landmark-public-private-initiative-will-make-it-nation%E2%80%99s-first-and-largest-ai
https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/news/Pages/CSU-AI-Powered-Initiative.aspx
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-04/california-state-university-unveils-massive-ai-venture
https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/news/Pages/CSU-Sets-Record-First-Year-Enrollment-for-Second-Year.aspx
https://igventurelli.io/openais-market-domination-partnerships-with-tech-giants-pave-the-way-for-ai-revolution/
https://time.com/6836815/the-key-issue-behind-elon-musks-lawsuit-against-openai/
https://www.pymnts.com/artificial-intelligence-2/2024/openais-shift-to-for-profit-model-stirs-debate-on-ai-innovation-and-competition/