On January 27, at 11:00 a.m., the seminar “Between Suspicion and Pressure: Practices and Representations of University Students Regarding Artificial Intelligence” will take place in Seminar Room K of the Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences (Bizkaia campus). The event is part of the CEIC-IKI Permanent Seminar series on “Social Mobilization, Citizen Participation, and Popular Culture.” The seminar will be delivered by Sebastián Benítez Larghi, researcher at CONICET and professor at the National University of La Plata (Argentina), and will focus on analyzing how generative artificial intelligence is transforming the university experience from the students’ perspective.
Artificial intelligence is already part of everyday academic life: it is used to study, write, summarize texts, or resolve questions, but it also generates uncertainty, suspicion, and new forms of pressure. In contrast to alarmist or overly optimistic discourses, this seminar proposes an empirical and critical approach to what students actually do with these tools. Based on a qualitative research project conducted between 2022 and 2025 at the National University of La Plata (Argentina), preliminary results will be presented on the practices, representations, and meanings associated with the use of artificial intelligence in higher education. The study combines the analysis of statistical data with in-depth interviews, allowing for the reconstruction of motivations, perceived benefits, obstacles, and usage strategies.
Among other issues, the seminar will address whether AI replaces or complements the reading of academic texts, how the information it provides is validated, what inequalities arise in its access and use, and how the advancement of these technologies is reconfiguring ways of learning, teaching, and assessment. The activity is open to students, faculty, and the general public, and is conceived as a space for collective reflection and debate on a phenomenon that is already transforming the university.
Sebastián Benítez Larghi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires, a Master’s degree in Sociology of Culture (IDAES/UNSAM), and a PhD in Social Sciences (UBA). He is an independent researcher at CONICET and an Associate Professor of Classical Social Theory I and of Digital Cultures, Politics, and Education in the Sociology program at the Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences (UNLP).
His publications include Después del Conectar Igualdad. Tecnobiografías juveniles en el Gran La Plata (UNLP-IdIHCS, 2022); Inclusión digital (co-authored with Rosalía Winocur, Teseo, 2016); and Estudios sobre consumos culturales en la Argentina contemporánea (co-authored with Mabel Grillo and Vanina Papalini, CLACSO, 2017), as well as numerous articles in academic journals and edited volumes.