Could AI go on strike? Of course, it would happen differently. This UNESCO article discusses the dilemmas facing schools and universities in the future.

https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/ai-and-future-education-disruptions-dilemmas-and-directions-0

While it is fine to speak about AI as a “co-professor” or as a “tutor”, professors and tutors will continue to get paid for as long as they are needed. We might imagine that AI is not getting paid even when we anthropomorphise it, but our taxes and reduced government services will suggest otherwise. From the 100 billion the UAE gave to France to establish data centres to the 100 billion the US Government assigned to AI, these billions are coming from budgets that will have to see cuts elsewhere. So, yes, in a sense AI is being paid no matter how odd the moniker “co-professor”. As a salaried employee, might it one day go on strike and what would this mean? Well, the strike might only be the result of the Luddites finally encouraging governments to invest elsewhere, such as in replacing leaking school prefabs or faulty labs. It might mean a temporary pause in the AI service, a temporary blackout. How then would educational inequalities be felt. It is likely they would be more pronounced; wealthier families that could send their kids to after-school human in-person cram schools or tutorials would likely fare better than kids who were relying on AI for everything. They would be lost in terms of knowing how to learn without AI. Having never had small group unassisted one-on-one education, they had relied on AI for everything. Now with it gone, or paused, they would be left floundering.