{"id":32835,"date":"2023-09-04T01:12:52","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T08:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=32835"},"modified":"2023-09-04T01:12:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T08:12:52","slug":"red-pill-or-blue-pill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/red-pill-or-blue-pill\/","title":{"rendered":"Red pill or blue pill?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The phrase \u201cArtificial Intelligence\u201d<\/em> makes me think about the Terminator films, in which John and Sarah Connor are trying to stop Judgement Day, the day computers become self-aware…<\/p>\n

…or the Matrix where the singularity quickly leads to the machine uprising, with AI dominating and tricking humans into believing the world they experience is real when instead they have been cultivated as energy sources for computers.<\/p>\n

…or the Spielberg movie called AI that\u2019s a sort of fairy-tale-on-crack that I can\u2019t write about without giving the plot away except to say that it all ends very badly for humanity.<\/p>\n

Maybe I watch too many movies (ok, certainly I do), because when AI seemed to exponentially gain traction during the pandemic, I was completely against it. Not only were the post-apocalyptic film scenes stuck in my head, but I also imagined the current iteration of AI would send us quickly into the type of ridiculously dumbed-down culture found in the movie Idiocracy.<\/p>\n

Like the character Guy-Am-I in Dr. Seuss\u2019s Green Eggs and Ham<\/em>, I did not like AI, and I would be the last person to try it. Then late last semester something unexpected happened. I tried it. And as it turns out, I liked it.<\/p>\n

What convinced me to try it was a conversation with a friend who is a university professor. I was complaining about a response to one of my blog posts that I strongly suspected was AI generated. My position then was that AI shouldn\u2019t be allowed<\/u><\/em> in a doctoral program.<\/p>\n

His response surprised me. He suggested the software itself wasn\u2019t the problem, but that students needed to be assessed for what they were learning while using the tools. That just like calculators, or spell check, or Grammarly, technology could be helpful to effective student outcomes.<\/p>\n

That conversation, and my subsequent use of Chat GPT, was a threshold moment.<\/p>\n

I now strongly suspect that my friend had already seen the Boud and Webb videos. Instead of trying to summarize those videos (and article), I\u2019ll share a few of my primary takeaways.<\/p>\n

First, AI as a learning tool still has significant problems. David Boud warns that AI often includes \u201cfalse answers and imaginary references\u201d[1]<\/a> and that when there are problems with biases in the data set the AI is trained on, it will repeat and amplify those biases. Michael Webb claims AI is \u201cgood at a lot of things, just not facts and maths.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Second, AI is quickly getting better. Humanity may be entering a liminal space when it comes to AI, but it seems that very soon the gains in technology will make it a powerful and much more accurate tool. An example of this is evidenced by Sal Khan\u2019s fascinating Ted Talk[3]<\/a> about how his company has been training generative AI to be used as a tutorial.<\/p>\n

Third, the use of AI in education will become as ubiquitous as it already is in other fields. The question isn\u2019t whether students will use AI, it\u2019s how they can use it as a positive force for learning. Boud calls for effective student assessment to ensure learning outcomes are met regardless of the use of AI, and both videos suggested that disallowing AI or trying to beat it through AI detectors is a losing strategy. As Webb said, \u201cwhy get into a war that we can\u2019t possibly win\u201d.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

Fourth, there is disagreement with how AI should be referenced. Linda McKnight claims \u201cthe problems start when AI writers are not attributed for their input.\u201d[5]<\/a> However, Boud suggests that like spell-check or Grammarly, soon AI will be so prevalent that requiring references \u201cwill not be realistic or meaningful\u201d, and that it will be impossible to \u201cput the Genie back in the bottle.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0However, until there is broad agreement in how to (or not to) attribute AI, I believe that referencing it in our work, like we would with a Wikipedia page, is a safe way forward to avoid plagiarism.<\/p>\n

Finally, there is a big difference between knowledge and wisdom. Using AI for cognitive offloading in knowledge acquisition might be useful, but a person still must understand how to assess, use, and apply that knowledge with creativity, analysis, and wisdom.<\/p>\n

So, AI isn\u2019t the scary problem I assumed it was, and in the right context it can be very helpful.<\/p>\n

I still won\u2019t use AI very much as part of my studies. I have this sick desire to earn my doctorate as analogue as possible; mostly reading (paper books), notetaking (admittedly on my apple notes app), and writing without AI prompts. There is something magical to me about scientists who still do complex math in their head or on a chalkboard even when calculators and computers are readily available. I want to keep my non-assisted skills sharp.<\/p>\n

But I admit I found AI to be a really useful supercharged search engine, and I\u2019m not beyond using it for that purpose in this program.<\/p>\n

By the way, just for fun I did have Chat GPT \u201cWrite a blog post referencing David Boud and Michael Webb answering the question what are dangers, limits and possibilities of AI for my doctoral studies\u201d<\/em>. It wasn’t half bad. But it didn\u2019t include any movie references, so I stuck with my own version.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> I don\u2019t know how to reference the David Boud Assessment AI Video that was shared on Google Drive.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YUNcrSrm47E<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hJP5GqnTrNo<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YUNcrSrm47E<\/a><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> The Times Higher Education; Campus Resources for Academics and University Staff, Linda McKnight, Eight Ways to Engage with AI Writers in Higher Education<\/em>, October 14, 2022.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> David Boud Assessment AI video<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The phrase \u201cArtificial Intelligence\u201d makes me think about the Terminator films, in which John and Sarah Connor are trying to stop Judgement Day, the day computers become self-aware… …or the Matrix where the singularity quickly leads to the machine uprising, with AI dominating and tricking humans into believing the world they experience is real when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2489],"class_list":["post-32835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp02","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32836,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32835\/revisions\/32836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}