During my first year of graduate studies at Notre Dame, the university introduced Grubhub robots to its campus. The move encapsulated so much of the moral schizophrenia that afflicts this great academic institution.
On the one hand, students are endlessly informed – in school-wide emails, in bulletin boards, in homilies – that the university cares about their physical, mental and spiritual health. Yet this messaging is belied by the fact that the administration simultaneously chooses to sully its beautiful campus with ugly bots whose sole purpose is to spare students the immense inconvenience of having to take a short walk to collect their fast food.
