The Digital Mentor
How Universities Are Adapting to AI Without Losing Their Purpose
Artificial intelligence is still debated at full volume—faster adoption, tighter rules, louder warnings. Meanwhile, its most consequential effects are unfolding elsewhere. Inside Europe’s universities, AI is no longer just a tool. It is a mirror. What it reflects is unsettling. Authorship weakens as evidence of thought. Efficiency detaches from understanding. Control, once foundational to academic authority, begins to hollow out.
Across the continent, universities are discovering that generative AI does not simply disrupt education. It exposes it.
Read MoreQuack from the Top
My First Official Report as Cartoon Executive Officer of Altair Media Europe
Washington, DC (well, sort of). Happy New Year, folks! 🎉 As we waddle into 2026, I’ve got big news from the nest: I’ve been promoted! That’s right – your favorite feathered frenzy, the one who just quacked sense into the Oval Office about Europe’s “luxury problems” in AI, is now the Cartoon Executive Officer (CEO) of Altair Media Europe.
Don’t laugh (okay, do laugh – that’s the point). In a world drowning in serious suits and buzzword bingo, Altair Media decided we needed a leader who can cut through the noise with a beak. The “C” stands for Cartoon, because who better to report on the absurdities of AI, geopolitics and innovation than a duck who’s seen it all from the pond?
Read MoreFrom Journalist to Signifier
Why Technology Needs Meaning Before It Needs Scale
There is a quiet shift happening in how technology is understood. For years, innovation was explained by engineers, promoted by corporations and regulated by policymakers. Each spoke their own language. Each believed their version was sufficient. And for a long time, it worked — or seemed to. Today, that model is breaking down.
Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, digital infrastructure and industrial policy are no longer technical domains. They have become instruments of power, identity and geopolitics. Yet the way we talk about them often remains fragmented: white papers without readers, press releases without substance, political speeches without technical grounding.
What is missing is not expertise.
What is missing is meaning.
