It’s been an interesting few weeks discussing ethics and professionalism with my students, well those that turn up, but that’s a different debate, albeit I guess, in a way linked to the essence of this blog.  As usual, my head is full of what a former colleague would describe as ‘magic’.  Lots of different seemingly daft ideas, formulated into some narrative that makes sense to me but is difficult to convey to the rest of the world.   The latter I’m sure is not peculiar to me, it happens to most people when they have to start writing something, some call it writers’ block, I just call it searching for the starting point.  The daft ideas though, I proudly claim as my own.  And that is why so often I end up writing a load of ‘stuff’ and then deleting it or at least some of it.  In writing, I’m aided by some spell checker built into the software that I’m using and suggestions, also built into the software, about grammar and sentence construction.  The latter often hinders rather than anything else, ‘no I do not want to revise the sentence to be more succinct.  Your succinctness makes no sense to me and does not convey what I want to say’.  A bit of a ramble so far I know, but I’m not going to change it because I want to convey the head full of ‘magic’ phenomenon (those of you that can remember it, can now sing the little ditty that will stick in your head for the rest of the day) and the writing process.   You no doubt will have noticed, well those of you that still have a pulse and the will to live, I have made no mention of AI. No use of AI to convey my head full of ‘magic’ ideas, no use of AI to help me start writing.  Why, well let me put it to you very succinctly, these are my ideas, it’s my head full of ‘magic’.  It does not belong to some machine, whatever appears on this screen, whilst I am writing, is mine and mine alone.  I cannot imagine a time when I will be so devoid of thought, ideas, creativity or ability, that I will resort to asking a machine to provide me with the answer or the output.  What would the answer look like if I did? Some verbose monologue that is boring, has little or no substance, is devoid of meaning and in the case of academic work, if this were such, is supported by pseudo or obscure, tentatively subject linked, or even fictitious, references.  Verbal diarrhoea on screen.   If you want evidence of this, ask any discerning academic about more recent student essays.  I say discerning for good reason, a reason that I hope to make apparent in a short while. 

Let me digress just a little.  Recently in the news there has been momentum around the use of mobile phones by young people, or more to the point, what some will say is misuse of phones. Or, the more cynical and critical amongst us might say the abuse of young people by multinational tech giants.  There to make money, tech companies have used algorithms, heuristics and goodness knows what to ensure young people are hooked on social media.  To their credit, they have also invested vast sums of money trying to limit online abuse and harmful content.  But let’s be honest, it’s like farting and then running around with some aerosol to try to cover up the smell.  It still stinks but the air is a little better in a few places.  Society and government are waking up to the harm caused by the use of technology by young people in this context and we have seen some countries introduce an outright ban on use by under 16s.  Something being mooted in this country.  Some schools have banned the use of phones in the classroom and as a consequence have seen youngsters returning to healthier past times like playing football or chatting, and of course misbehaving.  I would suggest that we have been well behind the curve when it comes to realisation of the harm that is being caused to young people.  As parents, we have even colluded in it, albeit more often than not, unwittingly. Those in education systems have probably done the same.   But this seemed to creep up on society almost organically, fertilised by businesses whose raison d’être is to make money regardless of cost to humanity.  Although they have always dressed it up as progress and of benefit to individuals and society at large.  The emperor’s new clothes comes to mind.

But what of AI?  There seems to be a clamour by government that as a country we need to jump on the AI bandwagon. AI is being foisted upon us, much the same as social media and the internet has been, by tech companies.  We are being told the next generation will need to be AI savvy.  But what does that mean?  Whilst all of this is going on, there is growing research showing that AI is crippling people’s cognitive abilities.  That AI will stop us from being able to analyse and be critical ourselves.  Technology does this.  Think about spelling, no longer do you need to worry about spelling because it is done for you, grammar, pretty much the same. No need to calculate things in your head, you can use a calculator, no need to remember phone numbers, they are all in your mobile phone, no need think up ideas, AI will do that for you, no need to read, AI will summarise it for you, no need, just no need. I am human but I have no need to think for myself.

And yet, armed with this knowledge individuals in educational institutions plough headlong into promoting AI to their students.  This can help you find sources, this can help you when you are devoid of ideas, this can help you make your work better, this can help you …. Stop thinking for yourself.  I and most of my colleagues are able to think for ourselves because we have grown up having to.  I know what I know now, which as an aside is very little, because I have had to think for myself, work things out for myself. Along the way I have been aided by all sorts of people in all walks of life, but I am who I am because I can think for myself.  But educational establishments these days concern themselves almost psychopathically with student numbers, finance and results.  There seems to be little understanding of what education really means or for that matter, little concern.  Institutional reputations are upheld at all costs, individual reputations forged on sycophantic behaviours with little regard to the impact on students or colleagues. Within this, institutions, driven by government and more importantly business rhetoric make AI central to their vision, their mission. 

I wonder whether in a few years’ time there will be an inquiry somewhere, that suggests we have deprived a whole generation of the joy of being human.  I wonder whether someone will say those individuals and institutions that so frivolously dabbled with AI, using students in a social experiment, were quite simply morally bankrupt in their drive to further their own ends.  And at least some of my students know what Immanuel Kant would say about that!