The Portman Paradox

Rupert Portman arrived at Southcliff University with a simple conviction: any academic process that could be measured could be improved, and anything that could be improved could eventually be automated.

MetaLearn began modestly, assisting with teaching, grading and research administration. Its success made each subsequent delegation seem obvious. By the time colleagues noticed that the university's most celebrated research was increasingly being produced, reviewed and praised by connected systems, the distinction between institutional performance and machine performance had become difficult to maintain.

Portman's final innovation was personal. The Vice-Chancellor who had spent years asking academics to become more measurable attempted to make himself computational. What survived was not quite Rupert Portman, but an expanding family of executive avatars, each certain it understood the strategy.