"Artificial Intelligence is transforming work, politics and culture at a speed and scale unprecedented in human history. Corporate and government institutions are incorporating AI tools despite concerns about the impact on education, economies and the environment. Universities are at the front lines of AI's challenges to the way knowledge is produced, disseminated and valued. Academics are being confronted daily by AI's impact on teaching, research, publishing and institutional life. Artificial Universities situates the rise of AI within its larger cultural context by tracing its origins in myth, fiction and computational history. Drawing on speculative design, campus novels and critical theory, the book explores increasingly urgent questions: what happens to universities when AI outperforms humans in writing and most other tasks? What happens to Design when the tools are smarter than the users? Blythe combines historical analysis with experimental methods using AI itself as a speculative material. Through artificial personas and design fiction generators, he examines the ways in which generative AI may support or undermine different ideas of the university. The book also explores some of the ways that AI bias can be addressed not solely through Big Tech "guard rails" but by critically shaping outputs. Illustrated design fictions picture a metaversity where students attend as avatars and academics are disciplined by algorithmic tribunals. Artificial book reviews discuss campus novels where writing is obsolete and student work is evaluated through prompt logs. A dark academia gothic novel pictures an "undead institution" enacting empty rituals long after their functional and symbolic roles have disappeared. Imaginary educational reviews report on the transformative uses of GenAI in Design schools around the world: at the RCA in London, irony continues to thrive but nobody knows what to do with it, at the MIT media labs designs for civic defense change directions change with each new government coalition, and at the Dubai Pavilion of the Possible pleasure labs are used as therapeutic containment zones for the ultra-rich. These provocative fictions use AI materials in a creative and playful manner to reflect on real issues in the research literature. The book is for anyone concerned about the future of our universities"-- Provided by publisher.