Anticipating the genAI institution

24 Apr 2026

April 29, 10am to 4pm, AMBS

The rise of generative AI has brought with it many challenges, alongside new opportunities for creativity and productivity. For universities, in particular, there are well-rehearsed questions about its impact on foundational ideas of academic integrity, authorship, and intellectual exchange. The speed at which the generative AI landscape changes can make it difficult to keep up with the present, let alone imagine the future of artificial intelligence in the university. The ideas and models that we, as lay people, use to make sense of these new technologies are rapidly out-dated, limiting our capacity to appreciate the practical and ethical challenges each new frontier model presents. Universities are often fire-fighting, coping as best they can with what can seem like an unending set of changes.

This session aims to provide a space to address this challenge, offering a change to begin thinking together about how LLMs and other generative AI systems might change over time, and to imagine new ways of thinking about the relationship between generative AI and society beyond the well-established binary of 'innovation' and 'regulation'. How will existing generative AI systems age or decay? What past features of academic practice might take on new importance? How might pedagogic relationships change? How might AI agents contribute to their own ethical development? And, in the event of a market crash, what might happen to the data infrastructures left behind?

• If you would like to express your interest in attending this session, please contact mark.carrigan@manchester.ac.uk