Building a GPT to Read Philosophy More Deeply
Laura Trujillo-Liñán on teaching students to build course-specific AI tools that make Aristotle, McLuhan, and other difficult texts more approachable.
Laura Trujillo-Liñán is the President of the Media Ecology Association at Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City.
Source note: This is an edited interview adapted from a narrated video submitted to OpenAI.
Intro
Laura Trujillo-Liñán teaches students to work with difficult texts: Aristotle, McLuhan, Aquinas, and other thinkers whose ideas are dense, abstract, and often unfamiliar.
Her AI project did not begin with the question, “How can students use a tool?” It began with a different premise: students should learn how to build one. In her courses, students create custom GPTs grounded in assigned class materials, then use them to ask better questions, prepare debates, and deepen comprehension.
The Interview
Q: What challenge were you trying to solve in your humanities courses?
Laura Trujillo-Liñán: Students often struggle with complex texts and abstract ideas. I have been teaching for nearly 20 years, and every new context, medium, and technology changes how students learn, think, and act.
Dense philosophical texts can affect comprehension and engagement. I wanted to help students approach those texts more actively.
Q: You made an interesting design choice. You did not simply give students a GPT. You had them build one.
Laura Trujillo-Liñán: Yes. The idea was not only to use technology, but to learn how to build it. We built the GPT together in class, step by step. The rule was that it could only use class materials. We fed it the assigned readings and instructed it to answer only from those materials.
Q: What did students do with it first?
Laura Trujillo-Liñán: One exercise focused on reading comprehension using a section from the Summa Theologica. Students read the text, asked the GPT questions about a specific paragraph, submitted a written report, and presented orally.
Later, they were able to answer a complex question clearly and without notes. That showed they were not only outsourcing the reading. They were using the tool to understand it.
Q: You also used it for debate.
Laura Trujillo-Liñán: Yes. We divided the class into two groups with different positions. They had five minutes to prepare with the GPT, and then we held a moderated discussion.
To answer well, students had to craft the right prompt and understand the response. Over the debate, they began relying less on the GPT and generating stronger answers themselves.
Q: That is a powerful outcome: the tool becomes a bridge, not the destination.
Laura Trujillo-Liñán: Exactly. The goal is greater participation and better comprehension. Students also learn how to personalize a GPT and how to ask more precise questions.
Q: What did the students report?
Laura Trujillo-Liñán: Students said they learned how to personalize GPTs and that the tool helped them understand philosophy. In a survey, 90 percent said the GPTs were helpful for difficult texts.
Q: What should other humanities instructors take from your experience?
Laura Trujillo-Liñán: AI can support deep reading when the tool is grounded in course materials and when students are responsible for building, questioning, and evaluating it. It should not replace reading. It should help students enter the text with more confidence and curiosity.
What Stands Out
Core idea: Students can learn AI literacy and disciplinary thinking at the same time by building course-specific tools.
Classroom design: The GPT was constrained to assigned readings and used for comprehension, reporting, and debate.
Student impact: Students participated more, understood difficult texts more clearly, and reported that the tool helped with philosophy.
Transferable lesson: In the humanities, AI works best when it sends students back into the text.
Bio
Laura Trujillo-Liñán is a professor at Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City and Vice President of the Media Ecology Association. She teaches humanities, philosophy, media ecology, and communication theory, and has nearly 20 years of experience helping students engage with complex texts and ideas.