Text: Marjolein de Jong | Photo: Dorian Jurne | 17 August 2026

The gold number balloons with which Roxane van Iperen recently celebrated her 50th birthday are still hanging in her apartment in Bussum. Van Iperen has just returned from a short vacation on Ameland and will continue working throughout the summer. She enjoys doing so, she says. 'When the rest of the Netherlands has checked out, I can finally work in peace.'

The irony doesn’t escape her. In her recently published essay I See What I Believe, Van Iperen writes precisely about the way we’ve come to view ourselves as 'mini-corporations'. We’re always trying to spend our time as efficiently as possible. Algorithms, moreover, mainly show us information that aligns with our existing beliefs, causing us to inhabit increasingly different realities.’ It’s a rather bleak picture, but she believes it’s not too late yet. 'We just have to take action now.'

On 31 August, she will speak at the Opening of the Academic Year at VU Amsterdam on the question of how we can continue to think freely in the age of Big Tech and authoritarian world leaders.

What is the danger of viewing ourselves more and more as “mini-companies”?
'By mini-companies I mean that we’ve come to see ourselves as a business. We must be productive at all times, use our time as efficiently as possible, and get the most out of ourselves. This way of thinking stems in part from the market-driven mindset that has increasingly permeated our society over the past decades.

The danger of focusing so intently on productivity is that we also begin to measure the value of other people by what they achieve or produce. In Nazi Germany, people with disabilities, psychiatric patients, and other vulnerable individuals were labeled “useless eaters” (Nutzlose Esser, ed.). Hundreds of thousands of them were murdered because they were deemed to contribute nothing and to be nothing but a financial burden on society.

Of course, this is an extreme example of what can happen, but the most important thing to realise is that a person’s value does not depend on whether they are productive, sick, disabled, poor, or unemployed. Every human being represents a life and therefore deserves a seat at the table.’

'As a result, we all start to think that other problems are more important, and we increasingly live in our own reality'

In addition, we’re spending an ever-increasing portion of our lives in the digital world. In I See What I Believe, you write that a current student is estimated to spend 25 years of their life in front of a screen.
'And that’s probably a conservative estimate, too. Moreover, screen time is often higher in lower socioeconomic classes. I thought it was important to state those 25 years so explicitly, to realise that this is what we’re doing with a large part of our lives. It applies to me just as much, mind you. When I get a notification on my phone about my screen time on Mondays, it startles me, too. And when I try to read a book, all it takes is for something to vibrate somewhere, and I’m already reaching for my phone again.'

What does all that time we spend in a digital environment do to our thinking?
'If you spend most of your time in a mental world that constantly responds to your primary emotions, you’ll increasingly view reality through the lens of those emotions. Within my own family, I see very different news than my children do, because the algorithm responds to different emotions for each of us. As a result, we all start to think that different issues are the most important and increasingly live in our own reality.

In addition, our reading and writing skills are declining, making it harder for us to understand complex ideas. For example, truly understanding that a democracy is more than just a majority rule, and that minorities must also be protected. To understand something like that, you need to be able to read critically, reason effectively, and think abstractly. However, a growing body of research shows that we are actually getting worse at these skills. For the first time in history, we are heading toward cognitive decline.

Without a shared reality and the ability to understand complex ideas, we as a society can no longer make collective decisions. Complex reality is simplified into binary thinking. And if we can no longer decide together, what will remain of our democracy?'

'As a professor, you can keep saying that you want students to think originally and read papers on their own, but how exactly?'

What does that mean for the role of universities?
'I don’t think people in education have fully realised yet that the roles have been reversed. Many professors are experts in their fields, but the world students live in is changing so rapidly. You can no longer think, ‘I’ll just tell you how things are.’ Students are growing up with different technology and different algorithms than professors. But in the meantime, universities mostly keep repeating the same old tune.

For example, students are told they’re not allowed to use AI, but with today’s focus on efficiency, the emphasis is still primarily on output and the end result. So then they all use AI and then another programme to make sure their work doesn’t look like it was written by AI. As a professor, you can keep saying that you want students to think originally and read papers on their own, but how exactly? We need to explore that together. Professors also need to adopt the mindset of a learner right now.’

What should universities teach their students that ChatGPT or AI models cannot?
'As far as I’m concerned, universities have two missions. First and foremost, they must prevent our ability to read, concentrate, and think independently from deteriorating further. Second, they must explore where our human added value lies.

Even my own children wonder what the point of studying is if AI will soon be able to do in a few hours the work for which they would need years of training. Thanks to me, they have a safety net, which allows me to tell them: invest above all in learning how to think. But not every student has that luxury.

I recently spoke with a small group of students. They were assigned to read the works of various philosophers and compare their ideas in an essay. They read those difficult texts and reflected on them in an original way. But because this was their first time doing this, their essays didn’t immediately meet the academic standard required for a passing grade. It is precisely during that first exploratory step - learning to think - that guidance is needed, and they didn’t receive it. They were simply told that they weren’t allowed to use AI and that if they were caught doing so, they would receive a failing grade. So what’s the solution?

The question should no longer be: Can you compare these philosophers with one another? It should be: How do I get students to keep reading and thinking for themselves? So what if they write a poor essay at first? That seems unimportant to me. What matters is what happens in their minds during that process. It’s a muscle you have to train. If those abilities weaken on a massive scale, young people will, in a sense, all grow up in cognitively disadvantaged households, and they won’t recognise it in one another, because everyone around them has the same weak muscles.’

'It’s as if we can no longer trust our own intuition, or would rather ask an American model for advice than another person'

What were you like as a student?
'I was also extremely focused on productivity, but that was for a very practical reason. I had to work full-time to pay for my studies. I chose to study law so I could find a good job as quickly as possible. I didn’t have the luxury of thinking I was there to be intellectually stimulated.

Still, there were a few professors who really resonated with me. I rarely attended lectures because I worked during the day, but for them, I made an exception. I didn’t think I was capable of anything special at all, but thanks to them, I realised something was clicking in my mind. Thirty years later, I still remember the concepts they explained. In my opinion, the power of education lies in people. No one cares about your subject if you’re not able to spark an interest in someone else.’

In your essay, you also write about the disappearance of the human element. How do you notice that in your own environment?
'Human interaction is shifting more and more towards digital interaction. When I ask my kids to pop over to the neighbours’ and ask if they’d like to feed the cat, they reply, ‘What’s their number?’ They definitely aren’t going over there. I also see that important personal questions are constantly being posed to chatbots. An acquaintance told me about a conflict her four-year-old son had with a classmate and suddenly said during our conversation about it: “But Chat says…” That startled me. As if we can no longer trust our own intuition, or would rather ask an American model for advice than another human being.'

'We can’t afford to sit back and do nothing'

Do you consciously try to bring that human element back into your own life?
'I, too, lived for a long time as a withdrawn, hyperproductive person, spending most of my time working and raising the children. By nature, I’m not inclined to seek out people, and I usually chose the solution that took the least time and involved the least human interaction. Now, when it comes to small decisions, I try to do the opposite. It’s okay if it takes time and involves contact with other people.

Something very small: I swim a few times a week at the municipal pool. There, I come into contact with people, smells, and other bodies that I didn’t choose myself. In the physical world - and especially in public spaces - it’s harder to withdraw than it is in your own digital bubble. You have to share the space with people who are different from you.'

Are those small steps enough reason for hope?
'The issue is anything but simple, but it would help if more people got on board and took a closer look at what’s going on. Withdrawing isn’t an option. I sometimes hear older people in education proudly say that they aren’t on social media. Then I think: that’s great for you, but your students might be on there for twelve hours a day.

We can’t afford to sit back and do nothing. It might start out very simply. Still, reading a complex newspaper article all the way through, stopping by to see someone in person instead of sending a text, or striking up a conversation at the bakery with someone you didn’t choose yourself. It starts with rediscovering what it means to be human.'

On 31 August, Roxane van Iperen will deliver the keynote address at the Opening of the Academic Year at VU Amsterdam, with the theme Free Thinkers. There, she will further explore the question of how we can continue to think freely in the age of Big Tech and authoritarian world leaders. View the programme and register at vu.nl/oay.