Dear President Carmen Twillie Ambar, 

We are writing to express our concerns regarding Oberlin College’s Year of AI Exploration. We recognize the reasoning behind the administration’s choice to take agency and “explore the impact of AI on all aspects of our campus,” but we are concerned by the lack of transparency and student input on the Year of AI Exploration.

Oberlin has chosen to invest financially in AI by purchasing access to the enterprise versions of the large language models ChatGPT and Google Gemini for all faculty and staff. As tuition payers, we feel as though we deserve to have input in this decision since it is funded with our dollars. We question the utility of a survey after the imposition of the Year of AI Exploration.

Critical information regarding the impact of this policy on our education has not been clearly disclosed. Our goal in attending Oberlin College is to live in a diverse community and learn from experts in their fields. If our courses have reached a point where they can be produced by AI rather than human thought, then we need to reconsider our credibility as an institution. Granting students and faculty access to premium AI software will decrease opportunities for developing academic skills, thinking critically, and forming unique ideas and work. The use of AI is not a genuine transfer of knowledge between people and is insulting to both the qualifications of professors and the time, effort, and money each student has put in to be able to learn with them.

We agree that it is important to measure the collective impact of AI usage on campus, which may be easier if Oberlin provides AI access for all faculty and students. However, AI usage and its corresponding harmful environmental impact are likely to intensify due to Oberlin increasing AI access. We question whether Oberlin can continue to call itself “carbon neutral” while purposefully increasing its use of a tool that consumes an incredible amount of resources. Oberlin has taken ambitious climate and environmental action, and we feel as though the new AI policy is a step backwards. Generating one 100-word email on ChatGPT uses 519 milliliters of water, more than the amount in a standard plastic water bottle, and enough energy to run 14 LED light bulbs for an hour. Oberlin should weigh these costs with the benefits of AI usage.

We demand that College officials halt financial investments in AI, such as faculty and staff subscriptions to the enterprise versions of ChatGPT and Gemini, until a student input process and cost-benefit analysis have been conducted. Additionally, we demand that the College disclose a clear list of the AI guidelines to be followed by faculty in creation of course material.

We hope you will consider our concerns and requests. We look forward to future discussions as to how the College’s AI policies will move forward in a way that better contends with student values.

This letter was written by the Oberlin Climate Coalition. The Sexual Information Center, Obiesource, Jews for Palestine, and the Canterbury Episcopal Society have signed this letter along with other student organizations.