I admit it. I’m not a refined or sophisticated person. My tastes run toward what some might call “pedestrian.” And at the end of last year, when my Spotify Rewind popped up, I was sort of ashamed to share it publicly. It’s not that my friends would be surprised–far from it–but I thought I had been trying to expand my musical selections.

So, I devised a hack: Create a Spotify list with five or ten of the hippest songs you can find, by bands few people had heard of. Play it once a day, and those songs are sure to show up on your Top 5 next December. Problem solved. Embarrassment avoided.

I failed. I couldn’t choose just five or ten, so I changed the assignment: Just fill a really big playlist with songs you wouldn’t be ashamed to show your friends: David Gray, Miles Davis, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Molly Parden, Chris Rea, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes…you get the idea. Let the fates sort out the rest.

One of the songs that ended up on the list was “Wichita Lineman” by Glen Campbell, which, despite its country origins, is often referred to as one of the best popular songs ever, even, believe it or not, by Bob Dylan. What I noticed one day recently while driving to do some weekend photography was the orchestra. You could tell it was an orchestra. If it were recorded today, that part would almost certainly be added in with a synthesizer that sounds (sort of) like an orchestra.

Fast forward.

Shortly afterwards, we all heard about Deep Seek, a new AI tool that upset Wall Street not because it does AI any better than other tools, but because it does it with far fewer chips. So I asked it a question, and got a perfectly fine response. But AI at its heart is a synthesizer, compiling and imitating what humans have created; compared to the real thing, the response sounded hollow and cheap and manufactured.

Despite its name, AI is not intelligent. It’s fast, and it’s powerful. Maybe someday it will replace all of us, but that day is not here. If you’re going to use it in your admissions/recruitment/financial aid functions, or any service area at your institution, use it for what it does well.

Just like my friends will now know my 2025 Spotify Rewind is manufactured, your students can tell the difference between an orchestra and a synthesizer. Be careful what you give them.