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AI in Higher Education

Caltech & Goldhirsh Foundation

Caltech CTME AI Educator & AI Executive in Residence @ Caltech & Goldhirsh Foundation

Wharton

Executive MBA Student @ Wharton

Stanford University

Director of Clinical Pathology Informatics @ Stanford University

OpenAI

Human Data / Forum Community Ambassador @ OpenAI

Kennesaw State University

Lead Academic Data Scientist @ Kennesaw State University

CUNY

Lecturer @ CUNY

Harvard Business School

Student @ Harvard Business School

Professor @ Harvard Business School

Education GTM @ OpenAI

NYU Stern School of Business

Chief AI Architect @ NYU Stern School of Business


 I'm curious about your perspective on something I keep bumping into lately.

After some years of working closely with AI-human interaction, especially in coaching and guidance for young people, I recently came across a program launched by a major tech company. They're introducing an AI agent into high schools, and how they present it caught my attention: they call it a 

Sure, AI can simulate warmth, be incredibly responsive, and even comforting. But is it really a friend?

In my experience, the danger comes when we start confusing emotional 

. A real friend doesn’t always agree with you. A real friend challenges you and holds a mirror to your blind spots. Sometimes, they annoy you or frustrate you, but they do that because they care. A friend, to me, is often a 

, someone who doesn’t just affirm but transforms.

AI, by default, doesn’t do that. It tends to please. To validate. And for someone who’s emotionally vulnerable, tired, or isolated, that can feel good,  maybe 

 good. The boundary between a helpful tool and a pseudo-relationship becomes thin, fast.

 from UC San Diego showed that GPT-4.5, when given a specific persona prompt, was judged to be human 

 more often than the actual human participants in the test. That’s... wild. And it raises the question: if people can’t tell the difference anymore, and might even 

. Its output should be held up to scrutiny, not because it’s malicious, but because it doesn’t 

 in the way a real human can. And yet, when it sounds so natural, so personal, it’s easy to forget.

Is there a healthy way to let AI feel like a friend? Or should we hold the line and stay clear about what’s human and what’s not?

Should we really call AI a "friend"?

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