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.
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