{"id":231595,"date":"2023-03-20T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=231595"},"modified":"2023-03-15T09:24:51","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T09:24:51","slug":"ai-robots-invade-the-classroom-so-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/03\/ai-robots-invade-the-classroom-so-what\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Robots Invade the Classroom \u2014 So What?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>8 Mar 2023 – <\/em>The future tapped me quietly on the shoulder the other day and suggested that I take a moment to learn about the writing bots.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They\u2019re coming!<\/p>\n

Excuse me, they\u2019re here<\/em>. And they struck me as alien invaders, this recent manifestation of artificial intelligence on the Internet, which college students, high school students \u2014 anybody \u2014 can download, feed a topic and get it to write an essay for them. Is this technology\u2019s next step, after Roomba the robot vacuum cleaner? Humanity is relieved of one more odious task \u2014 writing stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chatbot,\u201d Kalley Huang pointed out recently in the New York Times<\/a>, \u201cgenerates eerily articulate and nuanced text in response to short prompts, with people using it to write love letters, poetry, fan fiction \u2014 and their schoolwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apparently all you need to do to get the AI bot to produce a piece of prose (or poetry?) is give it a subject and whatever other information is necessary to define the topic you want it to blather about. It can then access the entire Internet for its data and produce whatever \u2014 your English paper, your love sonnet. The possibility of student cheating has suddenly become dire enough that college professors are starting to rethink their writing assignments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have some advice for them. But before I get to that, I need to calm my own pounding heart. Writing \u2014 to me, as a lifelong journalist, essayist, poet, editor, writing teacher \u2014 can be difficult as hell, but every hour devoted to a project is a wondrous adventure, a reach into the great unknown, a journey of discovery, of learning, of becoming. I have described the columns I write as \u201cprayers disguised as op-eds,\u201d and it\u2019s that word, prayer, that swelled and started palpitating as I stumbled on the existence of the writing bot. Should we let AI start writing our prayers? Should we shrug and simply stop being our fullest selves?<\/p>\n

Life is messy and writing is messy \u2026 it has to be. Truth is messy. If we turn the writing process over to the AI bots, my existential fear is that humanity has taken a step toward ending its evolution, ensconcing itself in a prison of conveniences.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to its free nature and ability to write human-like essays on almost any topic, many students have been reaching for this model for their university assignments,\u201d according to the website pcguide.com<\/a>, focusing its attention on an AI bot called Chat GPT, which recently proved smart enough to pass a law bar exam. \u201cAnd if you are a student hoping to use this in the future, you may have concerns about whether your university can detect Chat GPT.\u201d<\/p>\n

These words start to get at my primary concern about the whole phenomenon: Critics are missing the point, as they lament that the university\u2019s grading system is under assault. OMG, has cheating gotten easier?<\/p>\n

And suddenly it gets clear. When it comes to writing, there\u2019s always been a gaping hole in the American educational system, a mainstream misunderstanding of the nature \u2014 the value \u2014 of actually learning to write . . . finding your words, finding your wisdom, finding your voice.<\/p>\n

Let me repeat: Finding your voice.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where it starts. Without it, what do you have? I fear this is a silent question that plagues way too many students \u2014 way too many people of all ages \u2014 who were taught, or force-fed, spelling and grammar and the yada yada of thematic construction: opening paragraph, whatever, conclusion.<\/p>\n

I quote my mentor and long-time friend, the late Ken Macrorie, one of the teachers who bucked this system oh so many decades ago, when I was an undergraduate at Western Michigan University. He was a professor in the English Department:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis dehydrated manner of producing writing that is never read is the contribution of the English teacher to the total university,\u201d he wrote in his 1970 book<\/a>, Uptaught<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He was writing about his own career. He was trapped in a system that disdained most undergrads and their writing and often managed to force the worst out of them, a.k.a., academic writing, such as: \u201cI consider experience to be an important part in the process of learning. For example, in the case of an athlete, experience plays an important role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dead language! May it rest in peace. Artificial intelligence can no doubt do just as well, probably a lot better. Macrorie quoted this oh so typical example in his book \u2014 the kind of writing that is devoid of not only meaning but soul. His breakthrough discovery was what he called free writing: He had his students, on a regular basis, sit down and write for twenty minutes or longer without stopping<\/em> \u2014 just let the words flow, let fragments of truth emerge, and share what you have written. Worry later about spelling, grammar and such. First you have to find your voice.<\/p>\n

I wound up taking his Advanced Writing class in 1966, two years after he began using free writing as his starting place. Wow. I found my way in . . . into my own soul. I learned that truth is not sheerly an external entity, to be found in some important book. We all have it within us. Doing a \u201cfree write\u201d is a means of panning for gold.<\/p>\n

And this is the context in which I ponder this recent bit of techno-news: that students don\u2019t have to rely on plagiarism to fake an essay. They can simply prompt a bot and let it do the work.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not the essence of our social dilemma. As long as the system \u2014 let\u2019s call it artificial education \u2014 focuses on \u201cteaching to the test\u201d and insists on reducing individual intelligence to a number, and in so many ways ignores and belittles the complex and awakening potential of each student, we have a problem. AI isn\u2019t the cause; it helps expose it.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0Go to Original \u2013 commonwonders.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

8 Mar 2023 – As long as the system of artificial education focuses on \u201cteaching to the test\u201d by insisting on reducing individual intelligence to a number and belittling the potential of each student, we have a problem. AI isn\u2019t the cause; it helps expose it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":122360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1733,2994,258,461],"class_list":["post-231595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-chatgpt","tag-education","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231595"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231601,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231595\/revisions\/231601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}