I feel like I’m working at Blockbuster…. —and Netflix streaming just came out. I’m not trying to be a (so-called) doomer, nor irresponsibly speculate: but it’s difficult (bordering on naive) not to think that a 4 year university/college education is a hard pitch, especially in the face of (however dubiously) the pitch that one can learn anything one wants with the aid of AI for free. I can imagine the Blockbuster employee saying, “but surely people will want to continue to take pleasure in renting movies in person!(?)”—that is to say, this sort of logic might be seductive if one is pressured to be nostalgic like us professors… I’m not trying to be doomed, nor cynical; I’m just trying to be realistic about the probabilities. Specifically: what’s the probability that one’s institution (ie, any institution of higher education) can persuade an 18 year old (today and in the future) to take on student debt to pursue a college education (when, again, AI can provide that ‘same content’ for free).…