Walk into any university in Pakistan, and you will see students producing assignments, presentations, and theses that look so impressively neat and complete. However, beneath this lies a troubling question: how much real learning has taken place? The polished surface of academic work increasingly conceals a deeper epistemic compromise. Students claim they use AI to proofread, to refine, or to generate ideas. But the boundary between assistance and copying and pasting blurs gradually. The stage soon arrives when thinking and learning are influenced by the large language models (LLMs).
It is within this shifting landscape that the 2nd Riphah International Conference on Language, Literature, and Culture was organized on April 3-5. This conference serves as a timely intellectual intervention, aiming to develop a framework for creative and critical integration of AI tools.
In so doing, the conference focal persons, Dr. Hafiz Nauman Ahmed, and Dr. Shafqat Husain Zaidi from Riphah International University, Lahore invited scholars from across continents to explore how AI is transforming language education. From the University of Sydney, Dr. Ahmar Mahboob challenges dominant infrastructures of knowledge creation and circulation, while Dr. Kate Roy of Franklin University, Switzerland, and Dr. Fatima Syeda of Forman Christian College University, Lahore, unpack how digital systems reproduce colonial hierarchies. Their talks remind us that AI is embedded within structures of power that determine whose knowledge is valued and whose voices remain marginalized.
Prompt engineering, when approached with similar intentionality, can function as a modern extension of this dialogic method.
Equally important is the talk by Dr. Tayyaba Tamim from Lahore University of Management Sciences, who foregrounds questions of social justice in AI-mediated language education. She warns that without critical engagement, AI risks reproducing linguistic hierarchies, while marginalizing local voices and reinforcing new forms of epistemic injustice. In a postcolonial context like Pakistan, this warning is urgent.
Several keynote speakers remind us that the problem is not AI itself but the epistemological frameworks within which it operates. Dr. Claire Kramsch from the University of California, Berkeley, emphasizes that language is a code and a bearer of symbolic power, cultural meaning, and human intention. When language is reduced to algorithmic output, it is, mostly if not always, stripped of its cultural and historical depth.
At the same time, the conference does not fall into technological pessimism. Dr. Humaira Irfan from the University of Education, Lahore, highlights the potential of AI to revitalize endangered languages. She outlines a pathway to sustain linguistic diversity in Pakistan. Similarly, Dr. Ali Usman Saleem from Government College University, Faisalabad, and Dr. Abdus Samad from Kohsar University, Murree, emphasize the role of AI tools in language education.
The discussion is further enriched by foundational insights into language and cognition. Dr. Andrew Carnie and Ms. Asma from the University of Arizona remind us that human language operates through hierarchical structures that LLMs cannot fully replicate. Their distinction between human grammatical competence and machine-generated linguistic behavior challenges the growing assumption that AI can substitute human cognition. It reinforces the idea that while robots may mimic language, they do not embody the cognitive and emotional depth that underpins it.
The traditional assessment practices, which prioritize polished output over intellectual process, are increasingly misaligned with the realities of AI-assisted writing. When students are rewarded for producing a polished content, they are encouraged to depend on tools that can generate it without much efforts. What is lost in this exchange is the human process of thinking creatively and critically.
The conference chair and co-chair, Dr. Muhammad Islam and Dr. Muhammad Shahid Imtiaz emphasize that universities must move beyond reactive measures and develop a structured and forward-looking policy. This includes introducing comprehensive training programs, which can promote critical AI literacy among students and educators. It also requires rethinking assessment practices to value originality, logic, and clarity. It demands a shift from evaluating what students produce to understanding how they think, and eventually how this thinking process can be improved. The focus should prioritize the thinking process itself, instead of evaluating the final product.
This is precisely where the concept of prompt literacy becomes critical. Drawing from classical philosophy, one may argue that effective engagement with AI mirrors the logic of Socratic dialogue. Socrates did not provide answers; he asked questions. Through carefully crafted inquiry, he guided his interlocutors toward deeper understanding. Prompt engineering, when approached with similar intentionality, can function as a modern extension of this dialogic method. It can provoke reflection, scaffold reasoning, and encourage intellectual autonomy.
Equally important is the need to foreground ethics, integrity, and accountability in AI usage. As emphasized by the conference patron, Dr. Anis Ahmad, Vice-Chancellor of Riphah International University, the integration of AI into language education has become a moral and pedagogical concern. He underscores that students must be trained on when, where, and how to use AI. They must be conscious of LLMs cultural biases and limitations. How these models obscure indigenous perspectives and promote general and colonial dimensions in the production of text and talk.
In doing so, we return to the central question that this conference raises: what does it mean to remain human in an age of intelligent machines? The answer does not lie in rejecting AI, nor in surrendering to it. It lies in reclaiming the very qualities that define human intelligence, that is, critical inquiry, ethical judgment, cultural awareness, and the capacity for reflection.
The Riphah conference is a reminder that the future of education, and indeed of society as well, depends on our ability to strike a balance between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, if we fail, we risk producing generations of learners who will be proficient in producing or recycling text but will be handicapped in generating applicable thoughts. However, if we succeed, which I believe we must, then we can transform AI into a tool for genuine intellectual renewal.
The first author is a Professor of English at Riphah International University, Lahore. He is a lead guest editor at Emerald and Springer publishing.
The second author is an Assistant Professor of English at Govt. Graduate College for Women, Samanabad, Lahore