Great job bringing up the ethical side of AI that we must address... as Katie Porter clearly explained to us all - not a direct quote, but basically: we do not have to accept AI, rather we can define how and in what circumstances AI can provide resources - we must demand these 'guardrails' from our legislative leaders - starting here in California. As an elected leader in the community college district, Coast, I am deeply in the midst of understanding AI from all aspects. There is a think tank in USC: USC Center for Generative AI and Society doing great work. Professor Stephen J. Aguilar has a great presentation "preventing AI from Hijacking Education" I would reach out to him to understand his research and those under this think tank. Thank you, Liz Dorn Parker
With this -- and the monstrous, long-lasting damage the current regime in Washington DC is inflicting on our country, it seems we're now getting an inkling of how the Romans must have felt as the empire crumbled all around them.
Thank you for writing this. As the mother of an incoming HS freshman, I worry about this a lot. Currently, my daughter reads a lot and HATES AI for many reasons, and I hope that continues.
The 21st-century convenience of AI is going to do to our minds what the 20th-century labor and transportation machines did to our bodies. We become obese because we no longer have to walk or take the stairs anywhere.
We'll become stupid because we no longer need to read, write, or struggle through any mental tasks. Just like we need to purposefully pursue fitness now, we will have to purposely cultivate intellectual tasks. Just like fitness, only a small group of people will do it.
Honestly, I am hoping teachers and professors bring back blue books. Write in class. Teachers will have to deal with spelling errors and imperfect paragraphs, but hell, it is better to at least know if students have read and understood the material. Teachers NEED to make them struggle. Without the struggle, they will not learn anything.
Thank you. AI for productivity seems vital to being competitive but the moral injury that comes with environmental costs is hard to overcome. As a HS teacher who was in college as the I interweb was being born, I am saddened by the lack of reading my folks do and the real struggle to think critically . A large number of my students also have no capacity to handle adversity/failure….which pushes them into AI and cheating. Cheating is not new, outsourcing it and not even knowing if the answers are wrong is.
I use a calculator. But I also have number sense. And can do the math on paper…if I have to. Many students have do not have that skill (or the critical reading to learn skills).
AI should be a tool. Not a replacement for our brain.
The CA40 voters have decided. WRT the Primary, Lisa Ramirez had a clear AI policy on her campaign website, Esther Kim Varet had this topic on one of her town halls, Joe Kerr mentioned in at least one of the forums, Young Kim has statements promoting AI with some controls, and the likely winner of the Primary Ken Calvert has nothing to say on his site. However, with Ken’s unwavering support for the military industrial complex, he likely supports use of AI with less controls than all the other candidates.
Thank you for sharing - how upsetting! In the future, AI will help teach and make college and licensed jobs irrelevant. Here's a three week cram course if you want to learn to take action: https://litigationprep-seven.vercel.app/
Excellent post! Agree 💯. It's all about how you apply it but as the technology continues to advance, it's inevitable that students will use it to think for them. Students have always tried to shortcut the work- remember Cliff's Notes? But while those notes would summarize the book, they couldn't write the paper for you.
There's a lot of truth in this, but frankly, I've heard this before, back when calculators were introduced. "Oh, no, students will forget how to do long division!", etc. The trick is to use AI carefully and maybe that's something that should be taught in school.
Personally, I use AI a lot for a project I'm writing (neurosaeculum.org) and my trick is to pit AI against AI. I'll pitch an idea and let ChatGPT and Claude critique each other over it. Then if the topic is complex enough, I'll give the result to a set of "review AIs" (grok, meta, gemini, deep ai) to get their feedback. 2 or 3 rounds if this generates pretty good results.
This might be fine if you have foundational knowledge. I sometimes have AI critique surveys or reports I have written (critically: I wrote them).
However, these are kids who are literally just having Claude summarize an entire book and write a paper for them. They have no productive struggle with reading or writing at all, which deprives them of foundational literacy (an already significant problem).
Nina, I agree with you. AI is not going away, so the issue is how is it to be used, perhaps regulated, to make a better product not to create the product. I have used AI to edit some of my drafts prior to posting them, but my drafts are well thought through, and AI does not create the content.
Great job bringing up the ethical side of AI that we must address... as Katie Porter clearly explained to us all - not a direct quote, but basically: we do not have to accept AI, rather we can define how and in what circumstances AI can provide resources - we must demand these 'guardrails' from our legislative leaders - starting here in California. As an elected leader in the community college district, Coast, I am deeply in the midst of understanding AI from all aspects. There is a think tank in USC: USC Center for Generative AI and Society doing great work. Professor Stephen J. Aguilar has a great presentation "preventing AI from Hijacking Education" I would reach out to him to understand his research and those under this think tank. Thank you, Liz Dorn Parker
With this -- and the monstrous, long-lasting damage the current regime in Washington DC is inflicting on our country, it seems we're now getting an inkling of how the Romans must have felt as the empire crumbled all around them.
Thank you for writing this. As the mother of an incoming HS freshman, I worry about this a lot. Currently, my daughter reads a lot and HATES AI for many reasons, and I hope that continues.
The 21st-century convenience of AI is going to do to our minds what the 20th-century labor and transportation machines did to our bodies. We become obese because we no longer have to walk or take the stairs anywhere.
We'll become stupid because we no longer need to read, write, or struggle through any mental tasks. Just like we need to purposefully pursue fitness now, we will have to purposely cultivate intellectual tasks. Just like fitness, only a small group of people will do it.
Honestly, I am hoping teachers and professors bring back blue books. Write in class. Teachers will have to deal with spelling errors and imperfect paragraphs, but hell, it is better to at least know if students have read and understood the material. Teachers NEED to make them struggle. Without the struggle, they will not learn anything.
Thank you. AI for productivity seems vital to being competitive but the moral injury that comes with environmental costs is hard to overcome. As a HS teacher who was in college as the I interweb was being born, I am saddened by the lack of reading my folks do and the real struggle to think critically . A large number of my students also have no capacity to handle adversity/failure….which pushes them into AI and cheating. Cheating is not new, outsourcing it and not even knowing if the answers are wrong is.
I use a calculator. But I also have number sense. And can do the math on paper…if I have to. Many students have do not have that skill (or the critical reading to learn skills).
AI should be a tool. Not a replacement for our brain.
The CA40 voters have decided. WRT the Primary, Lisa Ramirez had a clear AI policy on her campaign website, Esther Kim Varet had this topic on one of her town halls, Joe Kerr mentioned in at least one of the forums, Young Kim has statements promoting AI with some controls, and the likely winner of the Primary Ken Calvert has nothing to say on his site. However, with Ken’s unwavering support for the military industrial complex, he likely supports use of AI with less controls than all the other candidates.
Thank you for sharing - how upsetting! In the future, AI will help teach and make college and licensed jobs irrelevant. Here's a three week cram course if you want to learn to take action: https://litigationprep-seven.vercel.app/
Excellent post! Agree 💯. It's all about how you apply it but as the technology continues to advance, it's inevitable that students will use it to think for them. Students have always tried to shortcut the work- remember Cliff's Notes? But while those notes would summarize the book, they couldn't write the paper for you.
There's a lot of truth in this, but frankly, I've heard this before, back when calculators were introduced. "Oh, no, students will forget how to do long division!", etc. The trick is to use AI carefully and maybe that's something that should be taught in school.
Personally, I use AI a lot for a project I'm writing (neurosaeculum.org) and my trick is to pit AI against AI. I'll pitch an idea and let ChatGPT and Claude critique each other over it. Then if the topic is complex enough, I'll give the result to a set of "review AIs" (grok, meta, gemini, deep ai) to get their feedback. 2 or 3 rounds if this generates pretty good results.
This might be fine if you have foundational knowledge. I sometimes have AI critique surveys or reports I have written (critically: I wrote them).
However, these are kids who are literally just having Claude summarize an entire book and write a paper for them. They have no productive struggle with reading or writing at all, which deprives them of foundational literacy (an already significant problem).
Nina, I agree with you. AI is not going away, so the issue is how is it to be used, perhaps regulated, to make a better product not to create the product. I have used AI to edit some of my drafts prior to posting them, but my drafts are well thought through, and AI does not create the content.