Historian and economist Niall Ferguson told students at the University of Austin (UATX) that giving anyone under 25 unlimited access to ChatGPT "will just be dumber" than others, warning AI tools are a “disaster” for “neural development” while the brain is still forming.
What Happened: Speaking at an Austin Union lecture in June, the UATX co‑founder argued brain plasticity lasts until about age 25 and said students who spend four undergraduate years "in the cloister" without large language models will "crush the competition" after graduation.
Ferguson likened the cognitive hit from AI tools to "very dangerous drugs," calling it worse than the harm he attributes to smartphones, social media and pandemic‑era Zoom classes.
The Scottish‑born scholar urged a curriculum that blends "classical wisdom and modern science" but forces students to "do the math on the whiteboard… not delegating it to a large language model."
See Also: Google Pumps $25 Billion Into US AI And Data Center Power Grid—Here’s Where It’s Going
“I can’t emphasize enough how much damage has already been done to your generation by these tools in the space of two and a half years,” says Ferguson.
Why It Matters: Ferguson's criticism of LLMs comes amid a growing split over AI in classrooms. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has cautioned users never to "blindly trust" ChatGPT, noting the system still hallucinates and must be checked against reliable sources. Elsewhere, a Business Insider profile this week detailed a journalism professor who credits the tool with saving prep time and improving student engagement.
Earlier this month, the American Federation of Teachers, funded by Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic, launched a $23 million program to train educators on AI guardrails, underscoring how quickly classrooms must adapt.
Whether universities follow Ferguson's AI fast or embrace a more controlled-use approach, the debate now shapes policies from high school bans to White House task forces and, for students, how much of their thinking they're willing to outsource.
Read Next:
© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
