Prompting, privilege, and pedagogy

A decolonial position on Generative AI in the university

Abstract

In the era of generative AI, prompting has become a ubiquitous, often invisible pedagogical act. As educators and students increasingly rely on gen-AI systems, prompting functions as a primary interface through which knowledge is sought, structured, and legitimised. This shift reconfigures pedagogical authority, agency, and epistemic legitimacy often in ways that reinforce epistemic injustice. Grounded in critical and postcolonial theories, the paper examines how prompting mediates access to knowledge and reinforces existing systemic inequalities. We argue that pedagogical interactions with gen-AI become a form of epistemic gatekeeping, privileging certain forms of language, logic, cultural and ontological norms. We articulate our position that the wholesale adoption of gen-AI demands a critical reckoning with its epistemic consequences, particularly the ways it automates and obscures inherited hegemonic and colonial knowledges. We call for a decolonial approach to gen-AI in curricula, beginning with the relational work of deep listening to the scholars and communities who have long imagined otherwise, and a commitment to act on what they have already asked for. We challenge higher education to resist the seductive efficiencies of gen-AI and confront the epistemological stakes of its choices.