University bars professor from spending grant money on AI tokens
iskander · x · 2026-10-04
A professor wanted to pay for AI tokens with his grant, but the university flatly refuses—and he can't afford it out of pocket.
iskander cites this as why he's won over to the FRO (foundation-independent research) model and other "light-admin" forms of academia: grants look like bank accounts you can spend from, but in reality dozens of approvers balk at anything new, making even AI inference costs impossible to fund through the traditional system.
Related event: Bureaucracy Blocks Professors from Buying AI Tokens, Sparking Outcry(4 posts)→
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