AI Mic Drop
There are always going to be differences of opinion, always going to be people who don't agree that Generative AI is making a positive impact or has the potential to make a positive impact on education. There are people who disagree with how it's going to have an impact, the way Generative AI should be integrated into education, what affects it should be allowed to have, the ways in which these tools should be used. Then there are debates on ethics, principles, values, the whys and the wherefores.
ALL of that is good. It's a healthy debate. It's a healthy discussion.
However, anybody who works in and around the domain of #aiineduaction and anybody who goes out there and presents, holds workshops, anybody who chooses to post things online, in their closed networks, wider networks and/or posts on social media, or even speaks out within their schools and/or within their communities. Those who choose to express their views on something that's so disruptive, will often come up with come up against those educators who, no matter what you say to them, are going to have a negative view.
As I have already stated, such differing views are a good thing but what I find quite bizarre is that those people choose to participate in particular professional development sessions where it's quite obvious that it doesn't sit well with them.
Is it that they didn't know before they came, ie it was not marketed right. Are the messages being delivered so far removed from what they expected?
Or perhaps they just come along to find out what is going on as they have no views but maybe it is about reaffirming their own negative stance. I’m not quite sure.
The important point for me, is that regardless of whether you hold certain views, ie you think that there are far more negatives with Generative AI than there are positives, that we are going to lose more than we're going to gain, that students are going to lose key knowledge, key skills, not be able to think for themselves, not be able to produce writing or other forms of output without digital assistance (which is quite bizarre because they've been doing that for a long time) – there is somehow a way of stopping the world.
I am bewildered by the idea that we can ‘put this back in the box’ and ‘just stop this right now’ or we can reverse things. I know that suggestion is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
What we have is a situation that's changed. What we have is a world that's changed dramatically. I know that sounds like a soap opera. I know it sounds like some sort of a Hollywood movie with highly paid actors (or perhaps AI generated clones of the stars in this scenario) that's unfolding in front of us. But that's how I see the scale, the magnitude of this is. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle. There's no way that we can just put this to one side (although there are some areas of education where they think they are doing that successfully which is weird!)
Also, I don't believe there's some neat little way of dealing with #aiineducation especially a way which involves packaging it up and safeguarding it, putting it into little software tools or ring-fenced domains of online use, which somehow we can effectively and completely manage. To me, that’s a pipe dream. Completely ridiculous and completely unworkable both in the short term and long term. Such views are those of false prophets, the snake oil salesmen, comparable to the plethora of people out there selling tools that are skinned on top of #ChatGPT, or any other model.
So, the point I'm making is that we all have to realise, as #educators, as any been anybody involved in and around #education, anybody who feels that they are committing their life, their working life, their passion, to advancing the knowledge, skills and well-being of young people:
You have to be willing to engage in and with #AI.
You have to be willing to take it upon yourself, take responsibility for how you're going to embrace this technology,
You have to work out how you're going to use this technology and what you are going to add to its advancement of mankind.
It's that important. It really is. It’s not what I am going to do with and about it. It’s what you’re going to do with and about it.
Mic drop.
