What If Artificial Is Real
National Public Radio (NPR) was broadcasting The Commonwealth Club luncheon from San Francisco. I had just started the car to go pick up our lunch, so I missed who the speaker was, but the topic was Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education. My ears perked. Up to this point, I’d only heard AI and education mentioned in the same breath when some kind of cheating was involved. This presenter was talking about the immediate feedback that was available to the student. I thought “spell and grammar check on steroids.”
I do think there is an advantage to a student receiving immediate feedback for an ill-placed comma or misused word. If I get a prompt comment, I can correct the error.
Immediate corrections can be made, as opposed to waiting a week until the student has a paper returned with a large red mark pointing out my mistake. I wrote that thing a week ago and the opportunity for any feel-good attaboys have slipped past.
Bet I can wad it up and make a basket in the metal trash can in the corner.
I have heard a variety of opinions concerning AI. The opinion that nags my mind was voiced by Stephen Hawking. He said, “Creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last unless we learn how to avoid the risks.”
AI is to assist in gaining knowledge, in learning. Learning. Learning? Learning has a history.
There was no public library in Stigler. I went to my aunt and uncle’s home and pulled volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia from their bookshelf. These encyclopedias helped me with homework. Then, on the Christmas I was 12, I was given a one volume encyclopedia. I treasured all 11 pounds of it. The AI of the time? If we view AI as a tool for learning, then yes.
I seems I learned in much the same manner in which my parents and my grandparents had learned. Books. Pencil and paper. Ink. And repetition. It seemed all math was long form. And again, repetition. I did little in school that the adults in my life could not help me with. Somewhere that changed.
I remember starting graduate statistics and being required a Texas Instruments Scientific calculator. You mean all I have to do is enter the raw data and press a button. What about all the formulas I had to memorize? Well, how about that.
Oh, they have this thing called a computer. It takes up an entire floor. Oh, no, you can’t run it. You take all your boxes of completed data cards in and hand them to a tech. They will call you when it is ready.
The first few times they call you, it is to tell you that in those thousands of data cards, you had a mismark. On the fourth try, you get it right. You cannot believe all the data that has been printed in dot-matrix on large green and white sheets. Unbelievable.
Then, “What do mean you want everything on a PC? A Mac what?” Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C. Clarke
