How was the 'first wave' of AI discussions for you?

Discussions about AI tools (such as ChatGPT) are happening everywhere. Or are they? The 'first wave' of AI discussion is being called to a close, but what has been left in it's wake?

February 2023

The first Tuesday of February 2023 was the first time commentary marking the end of ‘wave 1’ discussions about AI entered my timeline:

Tweet from @gsiemens 6 February 2023

I’m a long time fan of George Siemens, and regularly set his paper on ‘connectivism’ in my teacher education courses. His keynote at the AARE conference last year, delivered right on the eve of a widespread boom in discussion of AI following the release of ChatGPT, has brought his day-to-day commentary back into my sights.

Siemens’ reference to ‘Wave 1’ of the conversation of ChatGPT being ‘what it is and how to use it’ is succinct. And many of us are ready to move to the conversation that happens next, about the implications of ChatGPT (and other AI tools), and how to research it. But what are the ethics of jumping into ‘Wave 2’ discussions without checking the washup from the disruption that’s already been caused? And can we assume that someone who ‘knows what ChatGPT is and how to use it’ knows enough about those parenthetical (other AI tools) to be ready for the next conversational wave?

ChatGPT “and other AI tools”

One thing that has started dividing my professional conversations in the February—March period is the obvious distinction between people who have ‘played around a bit’ or ‘seen someone else using’ ChatGPT, and people who have ventured beyond that space to play with the oft-mentioned ‘other AI tools’.

So much about this situation is reminiscent of the times when social media was the newest thing. Here it reminds me of the gap between teachers who only use Facebook, and those who use multiple social media networks. There’s no denying that it takes a good deal of time and attention to keep up with new and evolving technologies - to try a raft of new tools, giving them enough time to have opinions about them, to bring them into your ways of working, to develop favourites.

I’m feeling the push already, to be across more of this. I bet you are too.

March 2023

By the end of March, conversations about AI had moved on rapidly (of course they had). This is the month where discussions started to regularly feature terms like ‘generative AI’ and ‘language learning models’ in ways that assumed knowledge of their meaning.

This month, GPT-4 was released, and Bing announced its new version - Bing AI ‘powered by GPT-4’.

Yep, this is the month that Bing re-established some credibility. Things really are on the move.

“All the students are using it”

Interestingly, after holding off on talking about ChatGPT with my year 10 English class (because it’s blocked by our school system), I caved in around week 6 of Term 1 and took a straw poll to confirm whether the kids were getting as hot and frothy about GPT as teachers were.

Of my 28 students, only three had heard of it. Of these, only one had made an account to try it out.

We were in the midst of a short story writing unit. The legitimate uses of AI for writing assistance in this task abound! And yet…they reported: not trusting that a good answer would be generated; being anxious about getting caught for plagiarism; and preferring to use their own minds to complete their own tasks.

My teaching colleagues in most private schools, especially elite schools where wealthier parents and tutors have ensured that ‘all students’ do indeed know about these tools, may find this hard to believe. But against the backdrop of “all [privileged] students already using this tool”, my data set of one (me and my class) illuminates a yawning gap in both knowledge and experience for some students.

If teachers aren’t empowered to address this, how far might we fall behind in the conversation during the year (or more) that it takes these tools to be available to most public schools?

The waves keep rolling in

Penning this in early April, all I can be certain of about the ‘next wave’ of AI discussion, is that very few people I know seem poised to ride that wave.

The time that some educators had over the summer break to immerse in these conversations has evaporated into thin term-1-and-semester-1 air.

The past two months have seen a constant flickering of AI-related alerts in the background of my device, but I can’t read many of them while my attention must remain focused on teaching. I just can’t read all the Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, Substack etc. posts about this topic that come my way, and it’s stressful. This will be the common dilemma of so many teachers.

It feels like getting dunked by waves, not riding them.

The great news for English teachers like me, is that rather than AI spelling the end of high-school English, I have a sneaking suspicion that these ‘language learning models’ behind AI might just need high school English to keep existing for a while yet.