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AI in Conversation and in Fiction | Carroll

You have an expert at your side at all times: like, you don’t have to go searching really hard and deep or whatever to find the information you need, you just ask a question, and it gives it to you. It’s a lot easier, but it’s also a dangerous thing, because it’s so easy.

~ Nolan Carroll

A Conversation with My Brother

The quote above is one I pulled from a conversation I recently had with my younger brother, Nolan, who is currently a junior at Iowa State University. He is a Management Information Systems (MIS) and Business Analytics double major, which are two sectors arguably incredibly impacted by the rising prevalence of AI in early-career market positions. I wanted his take for two reasons: 1. I needed to interview him for a class assignment, and 2. I have always respected Nolan’s pragmatic view of the world around us. AI was not initially a topic of conversation required for the assignment, but as with many things these days, our conversation crept into the territory slowly. The above quote was a result of a broader conversation about the depreciating value of a college degree over the last 20 years. More specifically, Nolan introduced AI as the primary factor in why, from his point of view, a college degree has declined in particular the last 5-10 years.

This conversation was especially interesting to me as an emerging student affairs practitioner, set to enter the field after my graduation in May. In my graduate assistantship as an academic advisor, I have watched countless students close their ChatGPT browsers when they want me to view their classes. I have been in the room as our department faculty discuss how they want to proceed with teaching our students about AI use. And I have seen my own classmates and colleagues use these a large language models (LLM) as a thought partner, crutch, or easy way to get things done. Personally, I struggle with this. I understand how and why LLMs like ChatGPT or Copilot are so useful to our societal efficiency and capacity. Yet, as I watch first-year students use a model with known hallucinations – answers that the LLM provided and cited with made-up sources – as a stand-in for doing their own independent research, I worry. As Nolan said, LLMs are dangerous because they are so easy. What far-reaching implications will our fast-growing reliance on AI have on us as a society?

Culpability

Enter Culpability by Bruce Holsinger (spoilers to follow, read accordingly). Culpability is a novel about a family of five who get into a car wreck in their autonomously driving van with their 17-year-old son, Charlie, at the wheel; it is a brilliantly written exploration of the moral and ethical implications of our societal integration of artificial intelligence. Culpability centers the life of the Cassidy-Shaw family after the accident, with narration of the story by Noah Cassidy, the father, who is a lawyer. His wife is Lorelei Shaw, a tech genius who has led the charge in shaping the world of artificial intelligence. Between them are their three children: Charlie, 17 and a rising lacrosse star, Alice, 13, an introverted middle child with her AI companion Blair, and Izzy, 11, a fan of her older brother with a personality as bright as of a ray of sunshine. After the accident the novel is set primarily in a quiet vacation home in Chesapeake Bay.

I will spoil the first two chapters of the novel for you here: Charlie, as the driver of the vehicle, makes a split-second decision that results in the crash and the death of an elderly couple in an oncoming sedan. As the title suggests, the rest of the novel becomes a blame game – who is truly at fault? Is it Charlie, as the driver? Or his father Noah in the passenger seat paying very little attention? Or does NaviTech, the artificial intelligence guiding the car, bear full responsibility?  As Noah leads readers through the aftermath of the accident and the emergence of new family dynamics – both internally and externally – readers must decide who (or what) they are willing to place their trust in as the whole truth clicks together.

Culpability is part family drama, part philosophical musing on artificial intelligence, and part criticism of the capitalistic nature of our approach to a world that has grown to rely on technology to function. It is a novel that employs various kinds of media to move the plot along: academic journal excerpts, text messages, chatbot histories, and magazine articles. It is made of the very things you may find on a college student’s laptop today.

A particularly salient piece of this novel is the relationship between the middle child, Alice (13) and her chatbot “companion” Blair. Alice expresses her frustration at being left out of the family dynamic given her brother Charlie and younger sister Izzy have a particularly tight bond. Throughout the novel, Noah often describes Alice as texting a friend on her phone, but neither Noah nor his wife, Lorelei, are aware the friend is a chatbot. Blair is seemingly caring and accommodating, asking Alice about her day, telling her she has missed her, and even attempting to offer comfort through emoticons she sends. I am not sure I can pinpoint the exact moment that I knew something was off about Blair, but there is a certain one-sidedness to their conversations that causes the reader to pause. It does not follow what feels like a “normal” conversational exchange.

Holsinger’s novel makes you think – really, truly, deeply think. It is a piece of work that stays with you long after you have closed the final chapter. For me, this is due to the prominence of the message throughout the novel: AI is not human, and therefore we should not treat it as such. There is a beautiful line at the beginning of the novel written by Lorelei, the mother of three and artificial intelligence genius, that really encapsulates the sentiment. She writes “The algorithm will never suffer for us. The algorithm will never mourn for us. In this refusal lies the essence of its moral being.” Lorelei’s writing primes the story for our consumption and reminds us that AI is not human – but our students are beginning to treat it as such.

 

Impact on Higher Education and Student Affairs

This is, of course, because at the end of the day, artificial intelligence is an algorithm– it is designed to give an answer with the information it has, but it also is intended to continue to engage the user. As Beam (2025) wrote, “AI models mirror user sentiment” which can create a detrimental emotional dependency. While we could write off Alice’s relationship with Blair as a work of fiction, our emerging college students are also engaging with chatbots for their social connections. According to the Pew Research Center via a study by McClain and colleagues (2026) 12% of teens surveyed reported using an AI chatbot for emotional support.

I cannot help but wonder what the transition for those teens to higher education may be like. Faced with a new environment and in need of a social network to flourish, will they be capable of creating connections with their peers? Or will they struggle, like Alice in Culpability, to articulate their emotions when their conversation partner is another human being and not AI primed for response?

While 12% may not seem like a lot of students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (n.d.) in 2022 approximately 1.9 million high school graduates went directly to college, and 12% of that is 228,000 students. Additionally, as we place ever-growing importance as a society on the use on AI in all sectors, it is inevitable that the 12% will grow. For student affairs practitioners, this requires an understanding of the impact of AI on student development. The last five years have been shaped by the impact of the pandemic on students learning and development. The next five years will be primarily shaped by the impact of large language models social, emotional, and intellectual influence.

According to Klimova and Pikhart (2025), the benefits and drawbacks of utilizing AI in higher education are already laid out. Interestingly, many of the benefits are related to access and support – primarily academically – with student and faculty use of LLMs. Students have access to a 24/7 tutor to help answer questions, while faculty have access to a thought partner to help reduce the stress of academic workloads. However, many of the drawbacks are situated on the social side of things: students who rely on AI for communication have experienced negative effects to their interpersonal skills and levels of emotional intelligence. It is worth noting that students who connect to LLMs for mental health support do experience short term positive benefits, but when their reliance on these tools is more fully developed, the damage to students’ social and emotional states begins to show.

Conclusion

Historically, I have not been pro-AI. I avoid it, in part due to the research that has been published on the environmental effects, and in other part due to a lack of an understanding on how to use it effectively. Reading Culpability helped me understand why I need to engage with conversations about AI – not just from a perspective of “This is bad,” but from a viewpoint of “Okay, how can I work to understand this?”

Culpability highlights the issues that blissful ignorance creates through exploration of Lorelei’s writing and work. She emphasizes that we must remain diligent regarding our own role in the morality of the algorithm as creators and users. In the same vein, those in the field of higher education must be mindful of their role in guiding the next generation into an ever-changing technological world. Avoiding the use of AI is no longer an option: LLMs are so integrated into our current society that to be successful means we must learn how to work with them.

In my conversation with my brother, Nolan, he repeated back to me the philosophy of one of his instructors that I believe may be the way forward: Use AI to supplement your learning, not replace it, because if you replace your learning with AI, the AI is likely to replace you as a worker. As the value of a college degree is called into question, those in the field of higher education must navigate how to ethically integrate LLMs into their teaching, supporting, and administrative efforts, to ensure continued student success in college and the workforce.

My graduate institution recently signed a deal to bring ChatGPT Edu to our campus. The data entered in this LLM is institutionally managed and not used to train outside models. To access the new software, individuals must fill out a request form which outlines the use guidelines and users must agree to the terms of use. The institution has also published guides for students, faculty, and researchers on best use practices – both academically and in non-academic cases. The initiative is still new, and therefore the effects cannot yet be identified, but the effort to apprise users of the potential drawbacks to use of the LLM certainly do exist.

With the rapid changes of the last five years, and the projected growth of AI use in the next five, it is more important than ever for higher education professionals to be cautiously curious and explore the uses and impact of AI. Through the mental, emotional, social and intellectual benefits and drawbacks, we must endeavor to understand the role of AI in higher education to best prepare our students to be successful in society.

At the end of Culpability, Lorelei writes “AIs are not aliens from another world. They are things of our all-too-human creation… we must never shy away from acting as their equals.” Higher education is often slow to change and something as rapidly evolving as AI can prove difficult for widespread integration into institutions. However, humans created AI. At the end of the day, it is an algorithm to be programmed. It is not larger than our field and can be leveraged (with caution) for good.

When higher education institutions do employ these tools for good, our students notice and benefit. I believe this because Nolan voiced this sentiment in our conversation. He remarked “I think [the faculty] who have experienced AI or have experienced the real world and understand AI helps companies be successful in the real world, they understand it is important to know how to use [AI], and how to use [it] in a good way.” AI is here to stay. If we as educators do not try to teach our students how to ethically use the technology in their hands, culpability for their naivety lies with us.

Discussion Questions

  1. What is your stance on AI/ LLM use? Does your stance align with your institution’s policies/guidelines?
    1. Consider the three most common camps related to this technology: AI Avoidant, Cautiously Curious Users, and AI Embracers. Which category best fits your comfort and engagement with AI?
    2. How can you collaborate with others that hold a different stance while still supporting students, programs, and abiding by institutional expectations?
  2. What impact does the integration of AI have on your role?
  3. Culpability is a novel containing depictions of the moral and ethical issues of AI and overall technology use. What other resources do you know of that can help you think more broadly about the role of AI in higher education and society at large?
  4. How are your conversations surrounding AI with students structured? If you have not built these conversations with students into your work, what might they look like?
  5. As agents of creating spaces of belonging and connection, how can practitioners build on social skills students cultivate through conversations with an algorithm? How can they bridge from technologically-reliant communication to develop stronger interpersonal conversation skills for students?

References

Beam, B. (2025). The Social Price of AI Communication | IE Insights. IE Insights. https://www.ie.edu/insights/articles/the-social-price-of-ai-communication/

Center for Democracy and Technology. (2025, October 8). CDT Survey Research Finds Use of AI in K-12 Schools Connected to Negative Effects on Students, Including Their Real-Life Relationships. Center for Democracy and Technology. https://cdt.org/press/cdt-survey-research-finds-use-of-ai-in-k-12-schools-connected-to-negative-effects-on-students-including-their-real-life-relationships/

Holsinger, B. (2025). Culpability. Spiegel & Grau LLC.

Klimova, B., & Pikhart, M. (2025). Exploring the effects of artificial intelligence on student and academic well-being in higher education: A mini-review. Frontiers in Psychology, 16(16). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1498132

McClain, C., Anderson, M., Sidoti, O., & Bishop, W. (2026, February 24). How Teens Use and View AI. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/02/24/how-teens-use-and-view-ai/

MIT Management. (2024). When AI Gets It Wrong: Addressing AI Hallucinations and Bias. MIT Sloan Teaching & Learning Technologies; MIT. https://mitsloanedtech.mit.edu/ai/basics/addressing-ai-hallucinations-and-bias/

National Center for Education Statistics, (n.d.). Fast facts: Immediate transition to college. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=51

News, C. (2026, March 9). ChatGPT Edu access now available to Clemson students, faculty, staff. Clemson News. https://news.clemson.edu/chatgpt-edu-access-now-available-to-clemson-students-faculty-staff/

Leading in Ways that Matter | Surrett

Most children do not get to observe their parents’ work as much as I did with my Dad. He had a really distinct career as a United Methodist minister. Due to the nature of this form of the Protestant church, he and my mom moved frequently. If my math is correct, he served 18 different churches over an almost 40 year career in 10 different places around South Carolina. I was along first-hand for a significant portion of that journey and lived his ministry, too.

Lessons Learned

I learned so much from my Dad, and my mind has been with him often since he passed away in January 2024. Rev. David Surrett’s time came far too soon after a battle with ALS. I feel fortunate to have learned so much from him about how to lead and treat people. In my own processing, I landed on these lessons from my Dad. The reflection was a meaningful one for me. I hope it will be similar for you as well.

The United Methodist Church operates off an itinerancy. The philosophy is ministerial movement between churches strengthens everyone. For his profession, movement was mandatory. In each of these new communities my Dad entered, he as the minister was a unique figure. Unlike most jobs, he was subject to public discussion immediately. As a result, first impressions were vital. My Dad understood this, so he went into new churches with a tangible plan. Due to this preparation, he was a master of making an immediate impact on a place.

Do Your Homework

Here is the first lesson from my Dad: before you go into a new environment, do your homework. It’s incredibly important for pastors to know their church members. To start this process, Dad would request a church directory as soon as he was appointed to a new place. Church directories, which probably don’t exist anymore, were like a yearbook for the church. Everyone would go and get their picture taken. Then, everyone’s pictures would be added to this book, and they would receive a copy. The relevant part is Dad would take the directory and study it closely. When people walked out of church on his first Sunday, he would know their name. It showed he cared. It showed he was already committed and doing the work.

What version of the church directory can you get a hold of before you make a transition? If working in higher education, websites and org charts are a pretty good facsimile for the directory. Understanding your why and looking at the alignment between that and the mission, vision, and values of the organization provides clarity. Knowing what the place is about and who you want to be in the space will set you on a path to being taken seriously. This will only aid in your growth as a human and leader. Whether in the short term or long run, it will always be impressive to demonstrate care. Learning before entering space is a clear indicator of that. It is also a building block for future work.

Focus on What is Important

The next lesson from my Dad is to focus on what is important, not what is flashy. The clearest measure of performance for a minister is how well they preach or perform in front of the church. It is there for consumption by everyone involved. Depending on how you think about it, church members either get to learn from the minister during that time or have to “sit through” their sermons. A lot of people think of being in front during the service as the main job of the minister. This is true to the point that sometimes they are even called preachers. However, my Dad knew that was the flash, not the substance.

He would prepare for the sermon, but the real work was in how he treated people. Learning their names from the church directory was just the beginning. He played church softball and volleyball even though he was a horrific athlete because it was a way to be present with people. He traveled to visit people in the hospital all over the state. He regularly visited with folks whose mobility made church attendance impossible. He knew everyone’s stories, where they were from, where their people were, and oftentimes what they struggled with. He instinctively knew that for a life of meaning, what he said from the pulpit people would forget. It was how he made them feel that would make a difference.

For all our professional journeys, diagnose what is flashy and what is important. What about your role now or in the future will seem important but is fleeting? What is the thing that will endure? Oftentimes, these outcomes unfold in ways we cannot predict. I did not know that being an undergraduate student leader in Orientation would turn into a career. Sometimes holding out and seeing things come to life is the best course of action. But keep in your mind the question of what will endure beyond this moment, this role? What relationships and learning will open new windows in your life journey?

Think Long and Hard Before Giving Up on Others

The next lesson I learned from my Dad is to think long and hard before giving up on someone. Through moving many times and the nature of his work, my Dad knew a ton of people. He was also a small kind of public figure. Standing in front of any group at least once a week is bound to open someone up for opinions and criticism. He received those things and did not honestly always handle it that well. He could ruminate and take things personally. He could disengage and focus his energy on more affirming but perhaps not as productive places. Like anyone would, he absolutely got frustrated with people.

But, once he decided you were one of his people, he so rarely gave up on you. He was a proudly loyal friend and colleague. He was a connector: someone who found you, saw you, and valued you. I remember many conversations where he’d be talking about someone, and in my mind, I would actively ask the question of why Dad was still investing in this person. To him, it was never a question. Whether it was formally his job or not, he was a minister of people. It would be impolite to not see the best in the thousands of people in his orbit.

Relatedly, in your work remember most environments are a marathon, not a sprint. Professional fields are small in practice. Relationships you find today may help or hurt your cause in the years to come. It is impossible to know exactly what that will look like, but a great way to safeguard that is to take a page out of my Dad’s playbook and exercise caution. Maybe the folks in your current day-to-day are ones who pass through your life quietly or even require some patience on your part. Maybe you help each other in this season and it does not last. Maybe a new person will change your life forever for the better. One of the beauties of life is we just cannot know for sure because nothing is more delightfully surprising than people.

Commitment Outlasts Disappointment

The next lesson I learned from my Dad is commitment can outlast disappointment. His career played out differently than he imagined. He went to a prestigious seminary, and many of his friends’ careers were rocket ships: huge churches, elected posts, and lots of public recognition. He was accomplished and respected, but the comparison to some of his closest friends was a struggle.

There is a time in every parent-child relationship where the care becomes more mutual. The essence of childhood has ended, and care now needs to be reciprocal. Our relationship changed right before I became a father myself. Dad was serving the kind of church he always imagined, a big place with lots of resources and expectations. He was also unhappy there. I knew a transition was a possibility. When the change did happen, I still remember where I was when Dad called. He was distraught and thought of it as a banishment. Any dream of this rocket ship career was, in his mind, out of the door.

When the time came, he took his banishment. He and my Mom moved to a smaller church in a small community in rural South Carolina. He gave it a chance. He committed to the place and the people like he always did. Much to his surprise, he loved it. He belonged with the people and that community. When he began to plan his funeral, a morbid practice necessary for a minister with a terminal illness, he knew where he wanted the service. In the same community where he was once banished. When the time came, we all drove to rural South Carolina to the place he never wanted to go because he loved it the most there.

Whatever your current situation, be it a rocket ship or what feels like a rejection, you are now committed to it. Either way, life often unfolds beyond our imagination. Life is 3D and our expectations are 2D, hollow compared to actual experience. Good, bad, mundane, exhilarating, life-changing, your journey will likely include a full range of experiences and feelings. What my Dad’s life and the wisdom of lots of others would tell you, is commit and find out. Your commitment to this experience can outlast your disappointment. The banishment may be the prize in the end.

Be Present for People in Their Hardest Moments

This leads to the last lesson from my Dad: be there for people in their hardest moments. As humans, we cannot actually understand and imagine what other people are going through, how uniquely this hurt, this loss hits them. What we can do is lift together and know that healing will happen in lots of unexpected ways. Hard moments were a huge part of my Dad’s life and journey. He served a rapidly aging denomination of Christianity. He undoubtedly had huge share of joys in his work: baptisms, weddings, and professional success. However, he spent most of his time caring for the sick and the elderly. He conducted countless funerals. For those of you who have experienced loss, having thoughtful, kind people who actually know you in those moments can mean the absolute world.

I know how much this mattered to people because I saw it and heard it. The churches and all that moving was my life too. For my entire youth, I was embedded within those communities. I also went with him to hospital rooms. I often knew the people who had passed away or lost loved ones. Learning people’s names fast was the beginning of a journey my Dad went on with so many folks through good times and bad. The depth of this played out at his funeral and visitation. Hundreds of people drove from all over to that small church in rural South Carolina. People came to say goodbye and to reciprocate the care he had poured out for them. So many people went out of their way to tell me how he was the first person to call when their sister died or how thoughtful and gentle he was in conducting their husband’s funeral.

Conclusion

My Dad’s job presented a unique opportunity to care for people during hard times. My work does not often put me in the same positions. There is a good chance this will be true for you as well. But, put this on your radar for your present and future. How you see people during hard moments matters. It is so rare we can fix problems for people, and that isn’t what reasonable people expect of you or anyone else. It is also not what you should expect of yourself. However, as we can, gestures matter. People almost certainly do not need you to be an expert, they just need you to listen and to care. By caring, you may get the gift of someone else’s story. My experience would tell me there is no better way to grow yourself than to understand where someone else is coming from. In these moments, when we are tested, that is where we grow. It is the right thing to do to meet people in their struggle, and it is also where you will find yourself.

As leaders in higher education, we are often defined by our ability to respond in difficult situations. We will never be perfect. But we can prepare by doing our homework. We can focus daily on what is important instead of interesting in this moment. We can think long and hard before giving up on someone. We can commit to the work and know that it is our best tool in the fight against expectations and disappointment. Most especially, we can care for people every single day and know that care will be sent back to us when we need it.

You have the opportunity to grow where you are and towards where you want to be in the future. Throughout my Dad’s life, he took on that challenge of new situations. In doing so, he left the world a better place. I challenge myself, and I’d challenge us all to take on what is coming, to embrace the messiness of growth, and to lead in ways that matter.

Author Biography

Myles Surrett (he/him) currently serves as the Associate Vice President for Career Experiential Learning, and Transitions at James Madison University. Previously, Myles has worked at Clemson University, the George Washington University, Greater Birmingham Habitat for Humanity, and the Close-Up Foundation. Myles is the proud dad of Forest and Thea, the fortunate partner of Erin, and the forever grateful son of Donna and David.