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Episode Title: Did California Spend Nearly $17 Million on Confusion?
Release date: July 24, 2026
Hosts: Devin Silvia, Danny Caballero

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In this episode, Devin guides Danny through Linda Kinstler’s New York Times Magazine article on the California State University system’s $16.9 million AI deal with OpenAI. They explore how AI is being used as a “solution” in the middle of a budget crisis, what that means for faculty labor and governance, and how it sharpens the question of what public education is for in an AI age.

Resources Mentioned or Related

New York Times Magazine (June 1, 2026): “California’s Public Universities Went All in on A.I. Now They’re Tearing Themselves Apart” by Linda Kinstler https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/magazine/ai-university-college-california.html
Cal State Spent $16.9M on AI During a Faculty Layoff Crisis – AI Weekly https://aiweekly.co/alerts/cal-state-spent-169m-on-ai-during-a-faculty-layoff-crisis
California University Chaos Caused by AI – The Patriot Post https://patriotpost.us/articles/128104-california-university-chaos-caused-by-ai-2026-06-05
California Universities’ $16.9M AI Experiment Raises … – LinkedIn post https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johnbrondum_a-university-system-went-all-in-on-ai-now-activity-7467470936087130112-mKpM
ASU and OpenAI expand collaboration, scaling AI to advance … – ASU Enterprise Technology https://tech.asu.edu/features/asu-and-openai-expand-collaboration-scaling-ai
OpenAI, Arizona State University partner to expand AI in academia – Reuters https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-arizona-state-university-partner-expand-ai-academia-2024-01-18
Introducing ChatGPT Edu – OpenAI https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-edu

Recorded: July 17, 2026

The California State system signed a $17M partnership with OpenAI. Is it worth the money?

Devin & Danny talk through the agreement, what is not being discussed, and how we might move forward collectively.

Did California Spend Nearly $17 Million on Confusion?

Episode description

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Funding links for What are we even doing?