Adjunct Intelligence: AI + HE

Adjunct Intelligence

Adjunct Intelligence: Ai and the future of Higher EducationStay ahead of the AI revolution transforming education with hosts Dale, tech enthusiast and AI Nerd, and Nick McIntosh, Learning Futurist.This weekly espresso shot delivers essential AI insights for educators, administrators, and learning professionals navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education.Each episode brings you a concise rundown of breaking AI developments impacting education, followed by deep dives into cutting-edge research, emerging tools, and practical applications that Dale and Nick are implementing in their own work. From classroom innovations to institutional strategy, discover how AI is reshaping teaching, learning, and educational operations.Whether you're working in the classroom, on the the classroom a university lecturer, TAFE teacher, or simply passionate about the future of learning, "Adjunct Intelligence" equips you with the knowledge to transform disruption into opportunity. Business casual, occasionally humorous, but always informative.

  1. 13h ago

    Students Hate AI and They Can't Stop Using It — with Dr Leon Furze

    Dr Leon Furze started his PhD on automated writing technologies on 15 November 2022 — ChatGPT launched 15 days later. Three years on, he joins Dale Leszczynski and Nick McIntosh on Adjunct Intelligence to argue that being critical of AI doesn't mean being against it. The conversation covers why educators shouldn't aim their anger at colleagues, teaching AI ethics through disciplinary lenses, Narayanan and Kapoor's "AI as normal technology," the Australian student voice research, why AI-generated lesson plans fall apart in the first ten minutes of a real classroom, and what good professional development actually looks like. [00:00] — Cold open: AI discourse in education has sorted into camps — the enthusiasts, the suspicious, and the overlooked middle where most people actually sit. [02:14] — Leon started his PhD on automated writing technologies on 15 November 2022; ChatGPT launched 15 days later, and his "3 to 5 year" horizon collapsed to "next term." [03:35] — Fifteen years in the classroom: why Leon still identifies as a practitioner first, and the risk of losing touch once you leave teaching. [05:57] — Showing ChatGPT to a school leadership team in late 2022 and getting blank stares; the frenetic January 2023 that followed, when Leon says he published 15 articles in a month. [07:12] — Australia's knee-jerk school bans (South Australia excepted), and why the current media cycle of cheating headlines feels like 2023 all over again. [08:43] — "Being critical of AI doesn't mean being against it": point righteous anger at unregulated tech companies and the politicians who failed to regulate them — not at colleagues or students. [11:35] — Teaching AI Ethics in practice: no institution has generative AI literacy experts, so teach through existing disciplinary expertise — algorithmic discrimination in health, misinformation in English, the historical record in humanities. [14:51] — The mental model problem: most people think this technology is a chatbot, companies keep dressing it up as Google Search, and we're trying to fence a boundless technology into existing curricula. [17:21] — Andrew Maynard's three curves (capability, utilisation, perception) and Narayanan and Kapoor's "AI as normal technology": R&D moves in weeks, education moves in semesters, and adoption takes decades. [21:09] — The techlash context: AI arrived 12 months after forced remote learning, pushed by the same companies that profited from it — and now educators are being roasted for not responding fast enough to a technology younger than most curriculum cycles. [24:00] — Intrinsic motivation is the real variable: if a student wants to learn, AI doesn't change much; if they don't, no policy will save the assignment. [25:35] — Leon's post "Students hate AI and they can't stop using it," the Tim Fawns-led student voice research across four Australian universities, and the double responsibility: create spaces to opt out, and teach students to use it well. [28:23] — Situated knowledge, or what AI can't replicate: a trainee teacher accepts a ChatGPT lesson plan that schedules a think-pair-share and a structured debate in the first ten minutes — when every experienced teacher knows the first ten minutes is taking the roll and finding lost students. [32:00] — "Lesson planning and assessment isn't grunt work — that's the work": why "AI saves teachers time" misunderstands teaching, and if AI can give that feedback, teach students to seek it themselves. [35:14] — Learning analytics gives Leon "the creeping horrors": dashboards versus a teacher noticing the empty chair, and why taking the roll was never just admin. [38:35] — What good PD looks like: start with what educators are already passionate about, make space for playful experimentation — like artist Martin Nebelong sculpting in Dreams on PS5 with AI layered over the top. [41:40] — The healthy endpoint: a school or university doing AI well would barely mention it, except where it's openly critiqued or explicitly taught — and it would be listening to its students. [43:30] — Where to find Leon: leonfurze.com and LinkedIn, rants included. 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    45 min

  2. May 31

    You Don't Learn AI From Trend Reports — You Learn It by Poking at It

    There's no dramatic moment where you suddenly believe in AI. It's usually something small and slightly embarrassing — a task you dreaded that suddenly has another gear. In this episode of Adjunct Intelligence, Dale Leszczynski and Nick McIntosh skip the trend reports and walk through the exact moments AI actually clicked for them: an image prompt that synthesised an idea, a tiny tool built during a Canvas outage, a system that started connecting their thinking, and the reasoning summary that changed how they read every answer. Every moment comes with something practical you can try this week — no roadmap, no keynote voice. [00:00] — How belief in AI begins [01:52] — Setting the episode's ground rules  [04:07] — Moment one: image generation [07:21] — When the image understood intent  [10:30] — Classroom uses, stock photo death  [11:31] — Moment two: building tiny tools  [14:28] — The Canvas hack workaround  [16:43] — Start small, build narrow tools [18:50] — Moment three: chief of staff [26:05] — Moment four: the reasoning chain 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    32 min

  3. May 24

    So, we need to talk about world models

    This week on Adjunct Intelligence, Dale Leszczynski and Nick McIntosh work through one of the busiest weeks in recent AI history. World Labs' Marble is publicly available. Google DeepMind's Genie 3 is generating navigable photorealistic 720p worlds at 20–24 frames per second. Gemini Omni Flash has rolled out to the Gemini app, Flow, and YouTube Shorts for free, with multi-turn conversational video editing where the physics actually holds. Meanwhile, Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab published its first technical paper — interaction models, a full-duplex architecture deliberately built to keep a person in the loop. And Andrej Karpathy has quietly joined Anthropic. Three trajectories, all landing in front of educators at once. [00:00] A teaching prompt this week  [02:01] A decade of world models  [03:57] Marble and Genie 3 land  [04:47] Gemini Omni rolls out free  [07:29] Simulation as pedagogy now  [09:38] The always-on agent arrives [12:42] Plot twist in voice AI  [14:21] Interaction models, not turn-based  [16:24] A field analyst, a speedboat  [22:36] A surprise transfer this week 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    25 min

  4. May 17

    The AI Tutor Flopped, So They Built the AI University

    Khan Academy's AI tutor Khanmigo quietly flopped — students didn't use it, teachers walked away, and Khan Academy's own chief learning officer admitted she isn't seeing the revolution she was promised. So instead of fixing the tutor, Khan Academy, TED and ETS announced a new institution: the Khan TED Institute, a sub-$10,000 AI-era degree shaped with corporate partners including Google, Microsoft and McKinsey — and not a single university. Dale Leszczynski and Nick McIntosh work through what it means when the companies selling AI tools also build the credentials that certify them, why student resistance to imposed AI is rational rather than technophobic, and what a healthier alternative actually looks like in practice. [00:00] — The clinical trials analogy [02:30] — Steelmanning the skills gap  [05:20] — Who's at the founding table  [06:00] — The South Korea precedent  [07:41] — Enclosure, not disruption  [10:03] — The always-on chatbot  [11:30] — Why students push back  [15:40] — Who steers the technology  [20:05] — The broken career ladder  [24:35] — Why universities can't leave 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    27 min

  5. May 10

    The Legitimacy Winter: Why AI's Real Problem Isn't Capability

    The AI trust story isn't what most people think it is. In this episode, Dale and Nick work through a cluster of signals — a dramatic enterprise market share reversal, a 50-point gap between expert and public confidence in AI, a $17 million university contract already under faculty petition, and teenagers harassing delivery robots on TikTok — and argue they're all pointing at the same thing: capability isn't the problem anymore. Legitimacy is. From procurement traps and surveillance affordances in institutional AI, to a thought experiment about social license and AI rights, this is the episode for anyone trying to make sense of what "responsible adoption" actually looks like when the ground is moving under your feet. [00:00] — Violence, brand aversion, data [00:46] — Welcome and framing [01:47] — Enterprise market flips to Anthropic [03:29] — Identity signal, not capability signal [05:09] — Pentagon, OpenAI, Anthropic diverge [06:47] — Southeast Asia: tool-first, not brand-first [07:17] — Stanford AI Index 2026 trust gap [08:25] — Anthropic drops safety pledge [09:46] — Should expert confidence carry more weight? [12:42] — CSU's $17M OpenAI contract [13:37] — Faculty petition: don't renew it [ 14:38] — Procurement cycles vs lab timelines [15:23] — What do you actually anchor on? [16:47] — ASU's ethics layer approach [18:42] — 82% use consumer AI anyway [19:38] — Why university platforms always die [20:46] — Institutional AI as surveillance affordance [22:42] — Legitimacy winter, not capability winter [24:13] — Clanker as cultural leading indicator [25:18] — AI tribal sorting in the classroom [27:14] — The AI rights question [28:00] — Social license thought experiment [29:08] — Social license is the whole game [31:15] — The educator's role in a trust winter 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    33 min

  6. May 3

    Mollie Dollinger on the HE Decay Narrative — and Why It's Wrong

    Professor Mollie Dollinger, Director of Assessment 2030 at Curtin University, joins Dale and Nick to push back on the story dominating coverage of higher education — that universities are in decay, students are cheating en masse, and no one inside the sector knows what to do about AI. The conversation covers TEQSA's voluntary action plans, why 65% of students worry about their own cognitive development, what shadow IT says about overworked staff, why society no longer trusts graduates, burnout research, the Einstein agent thought experiment, and the argument that the academy has centuries of expertise the tech industry is currently ignoring. [00:00] — The decay narrative pushback  [05:00] — Brookings student cognitive concerns  [07:30] — Why the bad story sticks  [09:50] — What's actually happening inside  [13:30] — Shadow IT and unapproved tools  [16:00] — Chatbots and AI tutors  [19:55] — Student success beyond jobs  [28:46] — Burnout and admin burden  [33:35] — Redesigning learning around AI  [41:12] — Who counts as expert 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    39 min

  7. Apr 26

    The Closed Loop: AI Companies as Education Researchers

    In March 2026, OpenAI quietly published a measurement suite for how AI affects student learning. The data flows straight back into OpenAI's model development pipeline. Three AI labs released studies in the same month, and the pattern matters more than the individual papers. Dale and Nick examine OpenAI's Learning Outcomes Measurement Suite, Anthropic's 81,000-person qualitative study (where AI conducted the interviews, classified the responses, and pulled the quotes), Anthropic's labour displacement research using its own usage logs, and Google DeepMind's cognitive taxonomy for AGI. The throughline: the companies building the most consequential technology of our lifetime are also defining how learning, work, and intelligence get measured. A frank conversation about structural conflicts of interest, what universities should be doing about it, and why on current evidence they probably won't. [00:00] — Three studies, one pattern [02:30] — Watchmen and vendor capture [05:00] — Inside the measurement suite [06:30] — The closed-loop problem [09:30] — 81,000 interviews by AI [11:00] — Cognitive atrophy among educators [15:00] — Observed exposure, broken ladder [17:00] — Disclosure versus actual accountability [19:30] — A cognitive taxonomy lands [22:00] — Three options, none easy 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    27 min

  8. Apr 19

    The data is in: Using AI impacts the classroom

    Dale changes his mind on air. For two years he argued that purpose-built educational AI tools — the "ChatGPT wrappers" that flooded Product Hunt after 2023 — were margin extraction, soon to be steamrolled by the foundation models underneath. A pile of new evidence has forced a rewrite. This episode walks through the OECD's Digital Education Outlook 2026, the Turkey maths randomised controlled trial showing raw GPT-4 users scored 17% worse on closed-book exams, the neuroscience work on cognitive offloading, the Australian Framework's procurement standard, and the UK's "progressive disclosure" mandate. The pedagogy layer isn't decoration. It's where learning either happens or doesn't. [00:00] — A confession about wrappers [02:30] — Flashback to 2023's wrapper panic [05:04] — A billion-dollar pivot, explained [07:52] — The Turkey maths study [10:16] — Cognitive offloading on college essays [11:04] — Revisiting the two sigma problem [12:47] — What good guardrails actually do [16:39] — Australia, UK, EU tighten rules [19:51] — What educators should ask vendors [23:16] — Field note worth trying 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    26 min
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About

Adjunct Intelligence: Ai and the future of Higher EducationStay ahead of the AI revolution transforming education with hosts Dale, tech enthusiast and AI Nerd, and Nick McIntosh, Learning Futurist.This weekly espresso shot delivers essential AI insights for educators, administrators, and learning professionals navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education.Each episode brings you a concise rundown of breaking AI developments impacting education, followed by deep dives into cutting-edge research, emerging tools, and practical applications that Dale and Nick are implementing in their own work. From classroom innovations to institutional strategy, discover how AI is reshaping teaching, learning, and educational operations.Whether you're working in the classroom, on the the classroom a university lecturer, TAFE teacher, or simply passionate about the future of learning, "Adjunct Intelligence" equips you with the knowledge to transform disruption into opportunity. Business casual, occasionally humorous, but always informative.

Information

  • Creator
    Adjunct Intelligence
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    37
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Adjunct Intelligence: AI + HE
  • Show Website
    Adjunct Intelligence: AI + HE

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