Links - (Education + AI = Future)
This is the way.
Let’s start with Michael Strong’s entrepreneurial approach to education. This recent post is a great over view of his education program, though hard to excerpt. The focus on themes and studies that are in fact relevant to students’ lives—and, importantly, obviously so to them—is one of many very strong attributes.
[T]his year we’re adding a complementary sequence to our STEM track that includes:
Progress studies
Decision Education
Empirical modeling
Forecasting and Prediction Markets
On progress studies he writes:
Economic historian Deirdre McCloskey has appropriately described the increase in standard of living as the “Great Fact.” For anyone who prefers innocent babies to live rather than die, anyone who prefers to eat adequately rather than experience periodic famines, anyone who enjoys clean clothes and hot showers, in short anyone who appreciates that they can read this in comfort, the “Great Fact” of modern progress is indeed the greatest fact of all.
In 2019, Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison wrote an influential article in The Atlantic proposing a new “Science of Progress,”
By “progress,” we mean the combination of economic, technological, scientific, cultural, and organizational advancement that has transformed our lives and raised standards of living over the past couple of centuries.
They go on to note that many thinkers and academic disciplines have studied aspects of progress, but that it is time for an integrated framework. This would include the role of economic and legal institutions, scientific research and engineering, cultural trends and attitudes, and anything else we might discover that tends to support human progress.
But if young people are ignorant of where progress has come from, and which aspects of our society are likely to be needed to support ongoing progress, then the next generation may see the loss of all we’ve gained. The Islamic “Golden Age” came to an end as did the innovative period of China during the Song dynasty, in both cases in part due to the suppression of independent thought. 20th century Marxism, led primarily by intellectuals, was devastating to those nations where it was most completely practice. In addition to the 100 million deaths, innovation mostly crept to a standstill and quality of life remained lower than in nations that maintained free enterprise. Insofar as young people today, especially college educated young people, are pro-socialist and anti-capitalist, there is a frightening possibility that the 21st century could see a repeat of the Marxist nightmare of the 20th century. For that reason alone, young people should learn the foundations of progress.
They need to be aware of the stunning progress that we’ve experienced, the role of institutions that support private property, rule of law, and freedom, the role of science, technology, engineering, and entrepreneurial innovation, and they need to know the role of tolerant, optimistic cultural norms that celebrate creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. They can also be introduced to institutional innovations that may accelerate and deepen progress, such as entrepreneurial jurisdictions and innovations in education. This curricular element will also serve to improve their mental health relative to those students indoctrinated into doom and gloom, resentment and envy, which are sadly staples of many mainstream schools and universities.
Open-minded, exploratory, experimental approaches like Strong’s are how progress is made in any field including education. This becomes especially relevant when it comes to a world-changing technology leap like AI.
Ethan Mollick dives into the issue of artificial intelligence and education in this piece. Some slices of his thinking:
The first illusion is the Detection Illusion: teachers believe they can still easily detect AI use, and therefore can prevent it from being used in schoolwork. This Detection Illusion leads educators to rely on outdated assessment methods, believing they can easily spot AI-generated work when in reality, the technology has far surpassed our ability to consistently identify it:
No specialized AI detectors can detect AI writing with high accuracy and without the risk of false positives, especially after multiple rounds of prompting. Even watermarks won’t help much.
People can’t detect AI writing well. Editors at top linguistics journals couldn’t. Teachers couldn’t (though they thought they could - the Illusion again). While simple AI writing might be detectable (“delve,” anyone?), there are plenty of ways to disguise “AI writing” styles through simples prompting. In fact, well-prompted AI writing is judged more human than human writing by readers.
You can’t ask an AI to detect AI writing (even though people keep trying). When asked if something written by a human was written by an AI, GPT-4 gets it wrong 95% of the time.
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And, of course, students are not using AI just to do their homework. They are getting aid in understanding complex topics, brainstorming ideas, refreshing their knowledge, creating new forms of creative work, getting feedback, getting advice, and so much more. Focusing just on the question of homework, and the illusions it fosters, can discourage us from making progress.
AI can be a compliment or a substitute (no pun intended) in education. I highly suspect in government public schools it will continue to be seen as a dangerous substitute that can be cordoned off and dismissed otherwise. It is one more example of why leaving education in the hands of a bureaucratic, subsidized behemoth is not a recipe for success. The resistance to change dominates the desire for progress and adaptation.