Generative AI in education, while receiving much excitement and strong marketing push from providers, presents several serious challenges to and for education. Generative AI tools often function as instruments of epistemic enclosure in that they support neoliberal goals by prioritizing transactional efficiency above genuine intellectual work. Blurring the line between creating knowledge and merely replicating it, this technology can alienate students from critical thought. Institutional responses, such as AI detection software, frequently worsen academic inequalities: They have a tendency to incorrectly flag writing from non-native English speakers as synthetic. At the same time, corporate data mining continues colonial practices by turning educational activities into commodities for profit. Further, Global South institutions are often shut out by infrastructural gaps, and algorithms systematically sideline non-Western knowledge. The environmental and labor costs are also substantial. These entangled issues signify how generative AI props up market-driven education. True resistance must challenge corporate control and reclaim education from algorithmic systems by advancing more fundamental structural changes towards our envisioned futures of education.
