Booing AI-Promoting CEOs and AI Evangelists: Perfect Opportunity for True AI Literacy

When a CEO in a commencement speech tells a group of young people "To Deal with it!" over their boos about the mention of AI, these words seem to be echoes of the voices of manufacturers telling the Luddites the same thing when machines were installed to replace them in the factories of the 19th century.

This time, Big Tech, our government leaders, and Ed Tech establishment are relentlessly trying to instill into students the "inevitability" of AI and their need to quietly acquiesce to its replacing them in the workplace.

Amazingly, while so many have bought in to the inevitability myth, there are still young people who have the clarity of mind to see through the myths that have been constructed around AI specifically. 

This questioning of AI’s rightful place in our world is a perfect opportunity for educators to foster, not passive consumer sentiments over the tech, but to empower students to question, to be critical, and to be in charge of AI’s place in the future.

Undoubtedly, people like this CEO does not want that. CEOs want to the power and the ability to replace humanity at will for power and profit.

Ed Tech had an opportunity to curtail the narrative that AI is inevitable, but it chooses instead to propagate the narrative.

But that narrative is a lie. The AI that is being created is not the AI we have to accept and adapt our lives to.

Despite what the myth says, AI isn't taking over anything. What is happening, CEOs and business leaders and even educators are making the conscious decision to replace humans for the sake of their own power and profit. It is that simple. They are making a conscious, ethical decision.

Because it is  choice, made by human beings, it is also choice in how AI happens and a choice in what we allow it do. That is where AI literacy should be. We should be giving students all the knowledge and empower them with the choice.

Despite how it is spun by the AI pundits, commencement speech boos are not about fears and misunderstandings of AI; it is a sign that there are still individuals who are thinking for themselves, and that is what education should be about, not fabricating “good little consumers of AI.”

As educators, we should be arming students with critical thought that attacks the inevitability myth and other marketing myths of AI that can counter and help students decide their own future with or without AI.

There is a space yet for Luddite thinking when it comes to AI, and it is time to start booing the CEOs and prophets who are making these claims of inevitability.

What's Wrong When a CEO Says He's Replacing 'Lower Value Human' Capital with AI? What a Perfect Example of an Awful Leader

 Bill Winters, a bank CEO said during a investment leaders summit in November of 2025, that he was replacing "lower value human capital" with AI.  (StanChart CEO Seeks to Reassure Staff Over 'Lower Value Human Capital' Comment from Reuters)

Think about that statement and what it says about the leader who says it. He has little value for humanity other than that which makes him and his shareholders more money.

This is an example of the worst kind of leader, and the worst kind of human being. The lesson to be learned is this instance? Don't follow this person anywhere!

What makes this problematic for me is that during my entire career in educational leadership, university schools of administration and school systems often turned to business and corporate leaders for models on how they should lead their organizations. We were even assigned in some cases books written by "successful CEOs."

But this incident should give any school leader pause before listening to a CEO boast about their leadership skills. It should also make one question whether anything a CEO tells you about leading a their companies can help in leading a school or district.

I have always thought that business/corporate leadership and school leadership are based on entirely different value systems, and this makes the two quite different. After reading about this incident, because the CEO is so blatantly anti-human, I am more than ever convinced that anything a CEO tells you about leadership needs to be viewed with heavy criticism and skepticism. 

I realize that the CEO said his quote was taken out of context, but that does not fly with me. The use of the "LOWER VALUE HUMAN CAPITAL" cannot ever be smoothed over by reframing and damage control. It is a clear indication of where this CEO's value system is, and sadly, he shouldn't even be granted the label of leader.

Certainly not all CEOs have these values, but this story is a powerful example of bad leadership and a model of a bad leader. 

Disaster Happens When Community College Decides to Use AI at Graduation: This Is What Happens When Educators Worship AI

"Just because I can use AI to do it, does not mean I should."

In the video below, this Arizona community college failed to consider this. Its decision to have AI announce names and it skipped many graduates' names. 

This is a fantastic example of using AI to search for problems to solve, instead of using it simply as a tool.

It is what I would call a "gimmicky" use of AI.

If an educator engages in "gimmicky" use of AI, it isn't about using it as a tool; it is about trying to look fashionable, with-it. This type of use has no place in education. 

We should not be selling AI to our students; we should be teaching them to be critical users of it. Let Big Tech sell their own products.

The thinking behind this is NOT using AI to solve a problem; it's using AI to impress, to make a statement, or use AI because AI is AI.

This is an example of using AI ideologically and not because it was a tool to solve a genuinely problem.

AI, is it is ever to be useful, we need to kick it off the pedestal that Big Tech and EdTech has placed it on, and just put it in the toolbox. If it has any uses, then people will pick it up and use it.

New Must-Have Component Needed in Digital Literacy Approaches: Instruction in Screen Addiction Engineering

There should be a new component in all digital literacy efforts:

Students should be educated on the engineered addiction aspects of these devices and technologies and what they can do take away Tech's entrapment power.

They should receive training, for example, on how features such as the "Like" button were utilized to lure them to these applications and keep them there. By recognizing the manipulating factors of this feature, they can de-elevate its importance and free themselves from its tyranny.

They should be receive specific instruction about how these devices can be exploit them and manipulate them.

They should also receive instruction in how to counter this built-in addiction feature and free themselves from the lure of screens. For example, they could receive instruction on "the notification" and how it is a siren's call to return to the screen. They could learn to limit or turn off all notifications at all times or during specific periods of the day. This would eliminate one major, addictive aspect of the screen and give them control over the device.

Ed Tech should transform digital literacy from being an effort to sanitize Silicon Valley devices and transform students into "good little consumers" of these, into being empowered and critical human beings who decide for themselves when and how these intersect their lives.

This would transform the field of Ed Tech from being a cheerleader for Big Tech, into actually giving children and their parents power of these devices. 

Sadly, Ed Tech still sees its primary role as delivering new consumers to these companies.

AI Is Not Inevitable No Matter What Ed Tech Tells You

Ed Tech’s argument to educators about AI continues with the inevitability argument, a genius marketing tactic of Big Tech.

“AI is here to stay so you might as well accept it and subject students to it, after all, they are going to use it anyway,” says post after post from the Ed Tech faithful.

That’s such a poor argument on so many levels.

First of all, the here-to-stay, inevitability argument… This is Silicon Valley dogma and marketing at its best. No technology is “inevitable” but think about it. If the Tech companies get users to acquiesce without protest, they’ve won from the start! 

Sorry EdTech, we do not have to accept AI as is. We can, through our government, push for regulation and through our consumer choices, we can refuse to use their products if they are not up to our standards. Consumers always have a choice. Accepting inevitability means surrending power.

Secondly, the students-are-going-to-use-it-anyway argument… Does it really matter? Students often choose to use any number of products, and it is not education’s role to teach the proper use of these products. It is not educators’ responsibility to sanitize AI so that it is used properly either. If one follows that argument, we should be requiring gun safety for every student too, just because all students need to use guns for good purposes and not bad ones.

EdTech is so biased on the issue of AI they have become a 24-hour-a-day commercial for it. Is there not anyone with a critical thought among them?

The field of Ed Tech’s future depends on the acceptance of AI, cell phones, and all manner of gadgets, and that’s why it is a marketing arm of the Big Tech. After all, creating students who are CRITICAL USERS might mean that they can choose to not use, and that’s bad for business.

Educational leaders, parents and teachers should take all arguments about AI and cell phones, etc. coming for Ed Tech with a grain a salt. 

Educators Should NOT Teach Students How to Use Technology with a Purpose: They Should Teach

Ed Tech advocates say, "We should teach students how to use technology with a purpose."

Do we teach students how to use a pencil, an eraser, or paper with purpose?

No, we don't start with the device, then teach students the ways in which to use the device; we start with the purpose, that which needs to be taught, not the device. The device is actually only relevant in its ability to serve the purpose.

If the device does not serve the instructional purposes, acccording to the judgment of the teacher, it has no place in instruction.

We also don't sit around inventing ways to use a pencil or paper in the classroom. We use them when they suit our instructional purpose, which comes first.

Education has gotten this wrong quite often in the past. We exchange our instructional purpose for the technology to achieve that purpose and spend all our time on the technology.

Too often, Ed Tech confuses the technology as the objective and the purpose.

Education should never be about teaching how to use technology with a purpose; it should be teaching and instruction as the purpose, and the technology might or might not help in that.

Educate Students, Not Consumers and Users of AI

It is not the function of education to sanitize and transform AI into a useful tool for humanity or even businesses.

If it is a useful tool, then it will find a place in that niche.

It is fallacy to think that if schools do not somehow educate to transform AI into a "magical tool of production" they are failures. This play on an educator's conscience is an old EdTech tactic and it is reprehensible.

There is tiresome post after tiresome post from AI experts, consultants and creators, who keep making hyped claims about its future. In reality, they ARE USING THE HYPE AND THE INEVITABILITY ARGUMENT TO ENSURE THEIR FUTURE INCOME AND WELL-BEING. The wise educator will cut through and look beyond the sales tactics.

After all, if AI flops or does not measure up to expectations, they will have made their money, and they can move on to the next technological invention like they have done in the past.

I understand when one has enthusiasm for a new gadget, but one must not let the glow and glitter shine so brightly that one can't really see. And, those of us out there that are subjected to this promo-rhetoric, need to keep our wits about us and our critical thinking hats on.