Objectives: This presentation aims to present data about how students are writing at university in conjunction with larger claims around AI, cybernetics (Leonid & Anton, 2015), and the Anthropocene. Thus, the objective of the presentation is to align these strands into a coherent argument about new learning at university in the context of developments in AI technology (Črček & Patekar, 2023) and the broader implications of the move into the Anthropocene. The presentation aims to combine concerns for machine learning with an understanding of new modes of education and communication in the Anthropocene (Leinfelder, 2013) that are in part helping to define the epoch. Theoretical framework: Cybernetic theory has developed from early feedback, homeostatic systems, to self-referential systems, and latterly to emergent, non-linear and unpredictable systems - the 3 waves of cybernetic theory, Novikov (2015). This development has tracked the post-war period of history, that has become known in terms of Anthropocene theory as the ‘Great Acceleration’ (Steffen et al., 2015). The Anthropocene frames the presentation in that the post-war acceleration in human development has led scientists and theorists to claim that we now exert such an influence on planetary systems that we have entered a new geological epoch dominated by humans (Lewis & Maslin, 2015). Thirdly, the presentation applies cybernetic and Anthropocene theory to create a novel approach to understanding how students write at university in conjunction with AI. Methodology and Data Sources: The research team have interviewed and observed students at their university with respect to their writing tasks (n=53). Thus, the methodology for the study was qualitative case studies, with the data thematically analysed for its relationship to AI functioning. Concepts taken from cybernetic and Anthropocene theory were applied to the data and case studies to build a picture of the machine/subjective learning (Bashir et al., 2021) that now happens at university in Australia when students write essays. Results: The paper shows how the use of AI has very quickly become a normalised part of the ways in which students are assembling their essays and performing writing at university. One might claim that the complex relationships between AI and human thought are becoming a defining feature of the Anthropocene.

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