{"id":34893,"date":"2024-01-15T11:49:53","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T19:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=34893"},"modified":"2024-01-16T12:47:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T20:47:35","slug":"whats-your-point-of-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/whats-your-point-of-view\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Your Point of View?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201c . . .The crew never believed they had failed. Instead they believed that each idea led them a bit closer to finding the better option. And that allowed them to come to work each day engaged and excited even in the midst of confusion. This is key.\u201d<\/span><\/em>[1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 2014, Ed Catmull wrote a fascinating story about how a handful of smart people built something that profoundly changed the animation business and popular culture. \u00a0The book is called,\u00a0Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unforeseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration<\/em>.<\/span>\u00a0 It\u2019s not just a book about being a creative, rather, it\u2019s a story on how to build a creative culture. Catmull writes how he and his team at Pixar developed methods to root out and destroy barriers to creativity while maintaining excellence. The gold of the book is the wisdom he offers to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity in the face of failures and setbacks. Catmull writes that experimentation is seen as necessary and productive, not as a frustrating waste of time. People will enjoy their work even when it is confounding.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Eve Poole\u2019s,\u00a0Robot Souls: Programming in Humanity<\/span><\/em>, she asks practical questions like, \u201cWhat is AI?\u201d How Should We Relate to AI?”\u00a0 “Will AI Replace Us?”\u00a0 She then asks a curious question that reflects my own thoughts: \u201cWould We Want to Design Perfect Beings?\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Would we? \u00a0Would you want to be perfect? If experimentation as humans is necessary and productive, helping people enjoy their work, then what do our future students work toward if failure is taken off the table?<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps there is an emotional consequence at play here that I\u2019d like to explore for the rest of this blog.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contemporary writers[2]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0who contribute to the AI conversation raise similar concerns about \u201cJunk Code\u201d[3]<\/a><\/sup>: In light of what AI can produce for us, it seems paramount to preserve our messy emotions, our unshakable ability to keep making mistakes, to tell stories, and to find meaning all around us. Even legendary music producer, Rick Rubin, confesses how something transpires in an artist\u2019s soul through the agony of the creative process.[4]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What will education become if it\u2019s not teaching students the ability to cope with uncertainty? Will we merely become a society training people what to do and no longer inviting them to think? \u00a0If I am following Eve Poole\u2019s logic accurately, (please correct me if I\u2019m misunderstanding), she believes we\u2019ve left out all the important parts of human beings in our robots; she fully believes we have the capacity to make soulful humans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three Instructive Questions Come to Mind:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Will Students Forfeit Meaningful Knowledge<\/span>?\u00a0<\/strong> Last year, we learned about threshold concepts, the point of entry or beginning. We read how the magnitude or intensity must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon or result for some kind of new learning to be manifested. \u00a0Meyer and Land[5]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0admit we\u2019ve lost the essence of discovery when questions are no longer asked. \u00a0What I learned from their work was how, \u201cbreaking through\u201d understanding and interpreting needs transformation to progress. \u00a0Like Ed Catmull\u2019s crew at Pixar who believed that every idea led them a bit closer to finding a better option, overcoming barriers in learning must come through deep questions riddled with uncertainty of self, identity and purpose. Eve Poole notes how we will need to teach AI the, \u201cetiquette of the strategic request for advice, and the range of interpersonal moves that resemble a request for information even when the answer is already available.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0In our quest for perfection and making life easier with AI, will our future students forfeit meaningful knowledge and lose a sense of depth?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. What happens to a Student\u2019s Point of View?<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>In simple terms, point of view is a set of perspectives and deep seated beliefs that when held together help form a person\u2019s opinions[7]<\/a><\/sup>. Rick Rubin goes a step further when he emphasizes how songs, plays, stories, books are all written from a person\u2019s point of view\u2013and he believes that\u2019s what we lose to AI: Point of View. A point of view is formed through our childhood experiences, relationships, imaginations, disappointments and romantic breakups. As Eve Poole poignantly iterates, \u201c . . If we are to establish an [emotional] baseline that is more AI centered, we need to prioritize self-awareness . . This raises an ethical question about whether we should program emotions into AI . . ?[8]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 It seems our future students must have a stronger sense of their point of view and not less if they are to work with the emotions of AI. What happens to a student\u2019s point of view if failure and setback are no longer a part of their learning or childhood?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. Would Fear Replace an Invitation to Think in our Educational Systems?<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Martyn Percy spoke to us last Fall during our time at Oxford about teaching, learning and educating. His words have stayed with me longer than I expected. He reminded us that we must teach people suspicion by asking, \u201cCould it be different?\u201d Remember when he asked what the difference was between theological training and theological educating? We could apply that question to a variety of pillars of learning. The agenda of training is based on fear while the agenda of educating is an invitation to think.[9]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Wait. . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        Might my Point Of View be all misguided?<\/span>\u00a0<\/em>My questions may be all wrong. What If a robot were sitting in one of our classrooms with meaningful questions, uncertainty, a point of view? Could we invite a robot to think and not train them in fear?<\/p>\n

        \n
        \n

        [1]<\/a>\u00a0Catmull, Edwin E. \u201cCreativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration.\u201d Toronto, Ontario: Random House Canada, 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n<\/div>\n

        \n

        [2]<\/a>\u00a0Turkle, Sherry. \u201cReclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.\u201d New York, New York: Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n<\/div>\n

        \n

        [3]<\/a>\u00a0P. 142 Poole defines Junk Code: \u201cIn computing, redundant code that could be deleted or rewritten in shorter syntax without affecting the execution of the program; in this book, those human characteristics that have been deliberately excluded from AI as being irrelevant, distracting, or dangerous, like the emotions, mistakes, story-telling, Sixth Sense, uncertainty, free will and meaning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n<\/div>\n

        \n

        [4]<\/a>\u00a0Rubin, Rick. \u201cThe Creative Act: A Way of Being.\u201d Edinburgh: Canongate, 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n<\/div>\n

        \n

        [5]<\/a>\u00a0Meyer, Jan, and Ray Land. :\u00a0<\/span>: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge<\/span>. London: Routledge, 2006.<\/span>\u00a0<\/a><\/span>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.4324\/9780203966273<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n<\/div>\n

        \n

        [6]<\/a>\u00a0Poole, Eve. P.123.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        \n

        [7]<\/a>\u00a0Oak and Reeds. \u201cCan AI-Powered Robots Have a Point of View?,\u201d January 23, 2019.<\/span>\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        \n

        [8]<\/a>\u00a0Poole, Eve. P. 117-18.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        \n

        [9]<\/a>\u00a0Percy, Martyn. Oxford Advance. 23 October 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        \u00a0\u201c . . .The crew never believed they had failed. Instead they believed that each idea led them a bit closer to finding the better option. And that allowed them to come to work each day engaged and excited even in the midst of confusion. This is key.\u201d[1]\u00a0   In 2014, Ed Catmull wrote a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"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":[2991,2611,2541,2989,2951,2988,2992,1725,2092,2990],"class_list":["post-34893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ed-catmull","tag-failure","tag-meyer-land-dlgp02-threshold-concepts","tag-pointofview","tag-rickrubin","tag-robotsouls","tag-uncertainty","tag-creativity","tag-eve-poole","tag-inc","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34893","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\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34893"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34930,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34893\/revisions\/34930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}