Trapped in Someone Else’s Imagination: Students on AI, Choice, and the Futures We Deserve – Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

When we asked our peers to imagine the world ten years from now, their nightmares came easily. Within minutes, our installation at the Oculus in downtown Manhattan was filled with handwritten fears: AI takeover. Jobs lost. Unable to think without AI. Love being replaced. The environment destroyed. 

But when we asked them to dream, to envision a just future shaped by AI, people hesitated. They struggled. Some walked away. As one of us observed while reviewing the data: “The dreams aren’t really dreams. They’re just responses to nightmares.” 

This realization sits at the heart of what we’ve learned through months of participatory action research: We are trapped in someone else’s imagination. 

When Dreams Become Pleas for Survival 

We are undergraduate students at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, working alongside our faculty mentor to understand how AI is reshaping our educational experiences and our futures. We aren’t doing this for a grade or for funding. We’re doing it because these questions are too important to leave to others. Through surveys, public installations, and countless conversations, we’ve collected responses from students and community members about their hopes and fears regarding artificial intelligence. 

What we found surprised us: Even our most optimistic visions were rooted in fear. One of the “dream” responses? “Stop killing the environment.” Not a vision of flourishing, but a desperate plea to prevent harm. 

As we analyzed the data together, one pattern became undeniable: people find it infinitely easier to imagine apocalyptic futures than liberatory ones. Why can’t we use our imagination as resistance? Why can’t we dream of a world where injustices are addressed, where we’re flourishing with these tools? 

One of us put it this way: “It’s a desperation for balance. The dreams are just responding to nightmares, not creating something new.” 

The Choice That Isn’t a Choice 

Through our research, we kept returning to one word: choice. But we realized that for most people, students, faculty, community members, really most of us, choice feels like an illusion. 

Students feel trapped in classrooms where AI has become taboo, a forbidden word that triggers suspicion and accusations. As one of us noted, “It’s like a witch hunt. If you mention you used ChatGPT, you never know what response you’re going to get.” Yet simultaneously, we’re told we’re being left behind if we don’t learn to use these tools, that employers will expect fluency with AI. 

Faculty feel trapped too. They are pressured to integrate AI or risk failing their students, evaluated on how effectively they’ve incorporated these tools into their teaching. Some report being accused of using AI to grade student work, creating a crisis of mutual mistrust. 

During our conversations, we realized something critical: When we lose the ability to choose, we lose our agency. And when we lose our agency, we lose our humanity. This question isn’t just about whether learning is able to happen under these conditions, this question of choice is also a question of democracy.  

Importantly, we have found that this is not a simple story. In fact, for some of us—particularly neurodivergent students and those in under-resourced environments—AI is a choice toward liberation. When systems fail us, these tools catch us. They bridge gaps that institutional resources never filled. One theme that emerged consistently in our research was students with learning differences finding in AI what traditional educational structures never provided: accessible support that meets them where they are. These supports may be available in elite institutions and to privileged students, but when they are not, they widen the equity gap. AI may be liberatory for many who have been pushed out of systems. 

“This Doesn’t Feel Like a Giant Step for Mankind” 

During one of our research sessions, we talked about how humans throughout history have expanded what they can do—from flying in planes to walking on the moon. These achievements felt collective, joyful, full of possibility. As one of us observed: “It wasn’t ‘one giant step for Neil Armstrong.’ It was ‘one giant step for mankind.’” 

But AI doesn’t feel like that. Instead, as one of us stated it: “This feels like a giant step for Sam Altman.” 

The benefits feel privatized. The decisions feel distant. Seven tech CEOs shape the trajectory of a technology that will fundamentally alter education, work, creativity, and human connection. This leaves the rest of us scrambling to adapt to changes we never chose. 

Who is steering this plane we’re all passengers on? And crucially: Are they listening to us? 

What We’re Actually Losing: Connection, Friction, and Authenticity 

In our conversations, we kept coming back to what feels at stake. Not just jobs or grades, but something more fundamental: our connection to each other. 

For faculty members, when they receive AI-generated student work they describe feeling “lonely,” not because of imperfection, but because it lacks what they characterize as soul. We understood immediately. When students use AI to generate work and faculty use AI to grade it, education becomes a transaction between machines while humans drift further apart. 

But we also realized something important about friction. Life has friction. Gravity is friction. Learning is friction, that frustration when you’re grappling with a difficult concept, and then finally, suddenly, you understand. Relationships have friction too. Even a hug is friction. 

As we reflected on this, one of us said: “AI is like a lubricant, it takes away all friction. But all good things in life have friction. They’re supposed to have friction.” 

Choice isn’t the guarantee of an easy life. Choice can be a burden. It’s heavy. It’s filled with friction and contradiction. But that’s what makes it human. That’s what makes it real. 

Whose Future Are We Building? 

What worries us most isn’t just the technology, it’s that so many people aren’t thinking critically about it at all. In our public installation, we noticed a pattern: people who interact with AI regularly (through school, work, or social media) had developed language to discuss it. They could engage in nuanced conversations about benefits and harms. 

But those who encounter AI less frequently? They struggled to articulate concerns or possibilities. They’re vulnerable to exploitation and exclusion from decision-making processes that will fundamentally shape their futures. 

As one of us observed: “The people who don’t know about it are the people talking less about it. That’s dangerous. There should be more initiative to include those people who don’t interact with it daily.” 

If people are excluded from world-building, we all suffer the consequences. 

What We Need Now: Reflection, Representation, and Real Choices 

Through hundreds of conversations, we’ve learned that people fundamentally want three things: 

1. To be seen and heard. Not surveilled, not suspected, not monitored, but genuinely listened to. 

2. To connect with each other. Not through transactions mediated by algorithms, but through authentic relationships that honor the friction and complexity of being human. 

3. To preserve our authenticity while expanding the tools we engage with. These don’t have to be in opposition. We can fly in planes without becoming less human. We can use augmentative technologies without losing ourselves. 

But none of this is possible without the space to reflect and the power to choose. 

We need educational spaces where AI isn’t taboo but also isn’t mandatory. Where students can make informed choices about when and how to use these tools, and when not to. Where neurodivergent students can celebrate AI as liberation without others facing judgment for choosing differently. 

We need faculty to have genuine academic freedom, not pressure to integrate AI to prove they’re “innovative,” but trust to design learning experiences that foster connection and growth. 

And we need all of us, not just tech CEOs, to shape the futures we’re building together right now. 

A Final Thought 

During one of our research sessions, someone asked: “How do we free our imagination?” 

We talked about disconnection, about being present in our bodies, about embodiment and earth. But we kept coming back to this: Maybe liberation involves reconnecting with our agency. Remembering that we still have choices, even when it feels like we don’t. 

Our ancestors struggled and dreamed for thousands of years, believing our lives would be worth their sacrifice. What does it mean to honor that? What does it mean to refuse to give away our minds, our creativity, our connections to predictive text machines? 

We don’t have all the answers. But we know this: The future isn’t written yet. Not by algorithms, not by tech oligarchs, not by anyone but us—collectively, messily, with all the friction and contradiction that comes with being human. 

The question isn’t whether AI will be part of our future. It already is. 

The question is: Who gets to shape that future? And are we going to listen to each other as we figure it out? 

This article emerged from an ongoing participatory action research project examining AI’s impact on higher education. The student researchers collected data through surveys, public installations, and community conversations, analyzing patterns in how people imagine futures shaped by artificial intelligence. We believe student voices must be central to conversations about educational technology, not as subjects of study, but as experts on their own experiences. 

Joshua Cedeno is a student attending CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice, studying Psychology, interested in the moral and ethical implications of emerging technologies. As a student, they have firsthand experience interacting with A.I. and are interested in participatory research that centers marginalized voices in technology policy. 

Jonathan Pallaud is a first-generation student majoring in forensic psychology and a minor in counseling at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY). They focus on understanding mental health issues and how to treat them. They also look at how research can help make therapy better. They are interested in how artificial intelligence affects people. This includes how AI changes creative work, how people see themselves, and what feels real online. Jonathan wants to help us understand how new technology affects how we act and how we connect with others. 

Yexayra Cabrera Martinez is a senior at John Jay College. She is applying for a PhD in Clinical Psychology because she is committed to collective liberation and healing. Yexayra is passionate about centering the voices of students in conversations that relate to higher education. Her work and life is defined by a commitment to non-hierarchical and collaborative community building and participatory methodologies. Yexayra believes it is vital to bring your full self and to remain human in spaces of academia and life, this reflects justice.  

Nataly Gonzalez is a senior at John Jay College (CUNY), majoring in Criminal Justice Management with a minor in Psychology. She plans to keep pursuing psychology after she graduates. She was once accused of using AI just because her professor wanted everyone to follow the same format, and she’s seen how much AI is affecting not just students, professors, and jobs, but people in general. That’s why she wanted to be part of this research because it actually matters, and it’s something that’s touching everyone’s lives in different ways. 

Gabrielle Battin is an undergrad graduate with a degree in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) who has also been accepted to the Forensic Mental Health Counseling Master’s Program. As a student, mother, and researcher she has firsthand knowledge of and diverse opinions on the use of AI powered tools with particular interests on how AI will impact the creativity, authenticity, and morality of future generations. 

Dr. Emese Ilyés is a critical psychologist and participatory action researcher at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), where their research, teaching, and publishing focus on centering the voices and experiences of those most impacted by systems of oppression. Rooted in critical pedagogy and liberation psychology, their work is dedicated to advancing social justice, disability rights, and community-driven scholarship in higher education.