Instead of asking how AI could improve education, institutions have obsessed over how to preserve surveillance. When ChatGPT burst onto the scene, much of academia reacted not with curiosity but with fear. Not fear of what artificial intelligence might enable students to learn, but fear of losing control over how learning has traditionally been policed. Almost immediately, professors declared generative AI “poison,” warned that it would destroy critical thinking, and demanded outright bans across campuses, a reaction widely documented by Inside Higher Ed. Others rushed to revive oral exams and handwritten assessments, as if rewinding the clock might make the problem disappear.