<p>An academic must both read and write papers. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) can now do both. I draw on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics to argue that reliance on AI outsources activities and reduces virtues necessary to achieve the purpose of academia—flourishing through the cultivation of reason. I highlight empirical research suggesting the threat posed by reliance on AI for the cultivation of intellectual virtues, and the need for sustained engagement with intellectual tasks. I thus urge scholars to resist delegating academic tasks to AI and instead to adopt a ‘low-tech’ virtue ethics, for which I offer advice on practical implementation.</p>