I have to be honest, I would block it too - schools and most teachers are miles away from knowing about how all this plays out - just like many good and innovative tools before it. Beaurocracies have wide turning circles and this gives some time to ‘line up the trailer’ metaphorically.
I agree. If it's true and 'the kids are all using it anyway'...fine. We'll cope. There is no shortage of 'backend' innovation that needs to happen in the meantime if we're going to integrate more AI tools into school learning. Like all the assessment change everyone has realised will need to happen. Assessment changes alone have a 12 month lead time.
I think it might also be a case of being seen to be doing "something" by both the politicians and parents. The trouble with this technology is that previously we had plenty of time to deal with computers, internet, tablets,- these took money and effort to implement in schools - this was pretty much instant (not really but that's something else) and takes no money and no effort. The fact that microsoft has and soon Google have integrated this into their products already makes me feel like the leadership won't ever catch up to this - I'm feeling like the writings of Charles Stross and his work Accelerando are a lot closer than we thought.
I haven't read Accelerando, it looks good, thanks for the tip! I have read Shusterman's 'Scythe' series though, it also provides much dystopian food for thought. One thing we can confidently predict is that dystopian fiction featuring AI is about to boom ;) My hunch is a lot more people are going to be suspicious of this technology than has been accounted for. Some will not want to try it, or use it. I wonder how many? We've had plenty of time to deal with 'the mobile phone problem/innovation' and that is still far from settled with many disagreements about appropriate use and many heads still in the sand - AI tech reminds me more of that.
Excellent post. Institutions always lag. The real problem is the zillion (almost) other apps spun off GPT that help with essays etc etc etc. Soon you'll have LLMs that you run on your own computer. ...
Thanks Chris - yep, the nature of institutions is that they will lag.
That is a cool app! There is so much new literacy in this for people: 'what is an API key? Should I enter it here or is this a trick? Will I get in trouble for uploading a copyrighted document? What is indexing?' etc. come up with this tool alone. Teachers have a huge role to play in developing this literacy, but have to be supported to get confident enough with it themselves, first.
I have to be honest, I would block it too - schools and most teachers are miles away from knowing about how all this plays out - just like many good and innovative tools before it. Beaurocracies have wide turning circles and this gives some time to ‘line up the trailer’ metaphorically.
I agree. If it's true and 'the kids are all using it anyway'...fine. We'll cope. There is no shortage of 'backend' innovation that needs to happen in the meantime if we're going to integrate more AI tools into school learning. Like all the assessment change everyone has realised will need to happen. Assessment changes alone have a 12 month lead time.
I’m with you! 100%
I think it might also be a case of being seen to be doing "something" by both the politicians and parents. The trouble with this technology is that previously we had plenty of time to deal with computers, internet, tablets,- these took money and effort to implement in schools - this was pretty much instant (not really but that's something else) and takes no money and no effort. The fact that microsoft has and soon Google have integrated this into their products already makes me feel like the leadership won't ever catch up to this - I'm feeling like the writings of Charles Stross and his work Accelerando are a lot closer than we thought.
I haven't read Accelerando, it looks good, thanks for the tip! I have read Shusterman's 'Scythe' series though, it also provides much dystopian food for thought. One thing we can confidently predict is that dystopian fiction featuring AI is about to boom ;) My hunch is a lot more people are going to be suspicious of this technology than has been accounted for. Some will not want to try it, or use it. I wonder how many? We've had plenty of time to deal with 'the mobile phone problem/innovation' and that is still far from settled with many disagreements about appropriate use and many heads still in the sand - AI tech reminds me more of that.
Excellent post. Institutions always lag. The real problem is the zillion (almost) other apps spun off GPT that help with essays etc etc etc. Soon you'll have LLMs that you run on your own computer. ...
I've not played with this yet but: https://knowledgegpt.streamlit.app/ Real fun.
Thanks Chris - yep, the nature of institutions is that they will lag.
That is a cool app! There is so much new literacy in this for people: 'what is an API key? Should I enter it here or is this a trick? Will I get in trouble for uploading a copyrighted document? What is indexing?' etc. come up with this tool alone. Teachers have a huge role to play in developing this literacy, but have to be supported to get confident enough with it themselves, first.
https://app.humata.ai/ looks better than KnowledgeGPT 2MB upload. Teachers will have a huge problem, AI lit will be spread so unevenly among students.
Interesting take, Kelli. Why do you think other such tools - for instance Youchat (you.com/chat) - are not banned?