As a staff person at a (supposedly) elite, Ivy League university, I can say that plenty of students are getting into VERY EXPENSIVE colleges with no reading comprehension skills, no ability to follow instructions, and seemingly no understanding of when they can and cannot get away with that shit. It's really sobering. From my office, we're supposed to be sending students abroad for weeks or months at a time and they can't even fill out a visa application when we give them step-by-step instructions. How are they going to survive overseas?
I have had students write to our office email in such a way that I can tell they are approaching that communication as if there's an AI on the other end that will just spoon-feed them the information they seek. They haven't done any of their own initial research. They haven't even gone to our website. It's a little bizarre. And I agree, it's largely not their fault. But it's also super frustrating to work with them.
Yeah, there is a whole other psychological element to this of what it does to our interactions with actual humans to get used to asking for information and having it handed to us rather than to have to figure out how to find it. He has also noticed a lot more obstinate, entitled behavior from his students, demanding answers from him like he's their own information butler. Because essentially AI allows us to interact with it as if it's our servant, which trains us to reinforce hierarchies.
A close friend who teaches 7th grade science has been forced to adopt an AI classroom platform. She said not only is LLM use preventing her students from critical thinking skills, but the mandatory AI interfacing now prevents her as an educator from giving accurate individual feedback. Seems like the loop is already complete, and it's not going anywhere because there's an AI development czar on the BoE making 200k/yr that the entire board defers to. It's extra amusing/horrifying because I've been working AI training gigs since my industry imploded, mostly on safety-adjacent projects (dangerous sycophancy, identifying out-of-distribution harm vectors, etc) and the kinds of behaviors my projects are trying to eradicate are the exact ones that are promoted as positives by their AI platform. If I still had the conspiracy theory mindset of my youth I would think the problem here was the actual goal, making everyone dumber.
I don't think it's a conspiracy to see that at least part of the goal is making everyone dumber. The other part is keeping us dependent on things they can charge us for. AI is free *now.* It won't be once we all depend on it.
Public school boards are still elected, so it seems to me like that community can get that AI development czar (and all those willing to defer to them) gone!
This really resonates. The story you tell shows how technology—AI and ubiquitous screens—intersects with systemic pressures to create impossible conditions for both teachers and students. I see the strain on educators trying to nurture foundational skills while students have grown up offloading critical thinking to devices.
As a staff person at a (supposedly) elite, Ivy League university, I can say that plenty of students are getting into VERY EXPENSIVE colleges with no reading comprehension skills, no ability to follow instructions, and seemingly no understanding of when they can and cannot get away with that shit. It's really sobering. From my office, we're supposed to be sending students abroad for weeks or months at a time and they can't even fill out a visa application when we give them step-by-step instructions. How are they going to survive overseas?
I have had students write to our office email in such a way that I can tell they are approaching that communication as if there's an AI on the other end that will just spoon-feed them the information they seek. They haven't done any of their own initial research. They haven't even gone to our website. It's a little bizarre. And I agree, it's largely not their fault. But it's also super frustrating to work with them.
Yeah, there is a whole other psychological element to this of what it does to our interactions with actual humans to get used to asking for information and having it handed to us rather than to have to figure out how to find it. He has also noticed a lot more obstinate, entitled behavior from his students, demanding answers from him like he's their own information butler. Because essentially AI allows us to interact with it as if it's our servant, which trains us to reinforce hierarchies.
A close friend who teaches 7th grade science has been forced to adopt an AI classroom platform. She said not only is LLM use preventing her students from critical thinking skills, but the mandatory AI interfacing now prevents her as an educator from giving accurate individual feedback. Seems like the loop is already complete, and it's not going anywhere because there's an AI development czar on the BoE making 200k/yr that the entire board defers to. It's extra amusing/horrifying because I've been working AI training gigs since my industry imploded, mostly on safety-adjacent projects (dangerous sycophancy, identifying out-of-distribution harm vectors, etc) and the kinds of behaviors my projects are trying to eradicate are the exact ones that are promoted as positives by their AI platform. If I still had the conspiracy theory mindset of my youth I would think the problem here was the actual goal, making everyone dumber.
I don't think it's a conspiracy to see that at least part of the goal is making everyone dumber. The other part is keeping us dependent on things they can charge us for. AI is free *now.* It won't be once we all depend on it.
Public school boards are still elected, so it seems to me like that community can get that AI development czar (and all those willing to defer to them) gone!
Sounds like most of the parents love that AI interface most of all because it offloads their need to help with homework! Melting face emoji.
This really resonates. The story you tell shows how technology—AI and ubiquitous screens—intersects with systemic pressures to create impossible conditions for both teachers and students. I see the strain on educators trying to nurture foundational skills while students have grown up offloading critical thinking to devices.