Borrowed Time

On Tuesday, August 12, 2025, I presented at the Provost’s Festival of Learning at Zayed University in the session From Consumption to Critique: Developing Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of AI, led by Dr. Rukiya Deetjen-Ruiz. The workshop explored practical, ready-to-use AI strategies for faculty while encouraging deeper reflection on how AI can enhance rather than undermine critical thinking and academic integrity.

My contribution, Borrowed Time, focused on the arts and creative disciplines, where generative AI is reshaping how we imagine, design, and produce work. I addressed the gap between this rapidly changing reality and how creative education is preparing students, sending a clear signal about the professional world they are entering. The above video offers an overview of the talk, highlighting the main points.

This presentation calls for urgent action: to train faculty and students alike in the thoughtful, critical, and creative use of AI, to balance the possibilities of automation with the irreplaceable value of human creativity, and to prepare graduates for a future where AI will be part of almost every creative process.