I haven't used AI yet. I feel it might dehumanize me. Isn't it insulting to ask another human to spend their time reading AI generated words? If I were to ask my readers to read artificiality, I'd be dehumanizing them. I took a class on how to use AI, mostly just to see what I might learn. The man (a technocrat) teaching it said he was about to bring his teenage daughters to the lake. He asked AI what teenage girls like to eat at the lake. It spat out predictable answers (wraps, chips, sandwiches, etc) and he was genuinely amazed at its capacity. I was truly shocked at his incapacity. I thought it was sad that he didn't have the social skills to just ask his daughters what they wanted. Instead, he asked a machine. It would never occur to me to use AI in that situation. Most of the situations in that class where AI was used were in regards to creativity, communication, and socializing - the very things that make us human.
That's honestly bizarre. I assume it was in part an attempt to grow closer to his daughters, but the result is very clearly that he alienated himself from them by (like you pointed out) not just asking.
Thank you for this piece. Even though it feels inevitable that the techbros will impose AI upon the world no matter what, I'm glad for every time I hear someone speak up about resistance. It's good to know you're not alone in wanting no part of this. I hope you are able to make some inroads into the young minds you're mentoring and help them avoid the AI trap (I do think it can be avoided, if one develops sufficient discipline and self-efficacy; it's just that opportunities to do so will be even more scarce, moving forward into a world that's ever more driven by algorithms and AI).
Thanks for the encouragement. I think you're right that not using AI will require active resistance, not mere passivity, as things move forward. I do have hope that that culture of resistance is germinating now.
Honestly I am so sorry that you are a teacher in the age of AI, but I am so thankful there are teachers like you who are doing the good work of educating in spite of it.
Thank you for this essay, and for your work with students to help them make good decisions for themselves from a long-term life perspective. I'm fully aligned with your argument.
I'm haunted by the faces of the young men presenting their work to Miyazaki in the linked video, they seem shocked at his reaction as if it was exactly the opposite of what they expected. I felt their reaction from the looks on their faces. And yet I can't escape the feeling that it was the same generational conflict that has taken place throughout the evolution of technology -- they see this as their future (in competition with others to master new technology for anticipated rewards) and masters of the 'old ways' thunder about what's being lost. I'm thundering as well. I wonder about those boys and whether Miyazaki inspired any fundamental change of heart.
Of course I'm thundering my agreement with you and Miyazaki, because from here in my 50s, I'm now one of the older people too. Then I take a step back and put myself in the situation of young students raised with the screens we've provided them, and our shortened, dopamine-addicted attention spans. I didn't have that growing up, and shudder to think about the state of my mind if I had. I didn't like writing the papers either at that age (wish I could have been oriented differently to that!), and if I'd had a compromised attention span and been subject to all the time-sucking distractions that light up our screens, I'd have been tempted to resort at the last minute to letting a machine write for me as well.
So much push and pull in this human condition, best for us all to remain face to face and talk to one another with compassion.
All of this to say, thank you again for what you're doing with your students, and for your insightful essay!
I also was struck by the faces of the young men in the video. The very picture of "crestfallen". You're right though, it's important to put ourselves in the shoes of others. I keep having to relearn that as a teacher, and it's difficult.
You're precisely right. I think genAI is the product of a world that moves too fast and demands too much of humanity, too much of the earth. In a healthy society, it's rejected outright, if it's even invented at all. The good news is that it has been largely rejected, but unfortunately, these companies have the power to ignore the public's opinion. But writing and sharing our criticism pushes back.
Well, in his defense, you can imagine that the craft had yet to fully flower in Athens in the 400s BC. Modernity has improved some things. But you really should read the Gorgias and give him a fair shake. It's very good!
I write poetry. So much of the pleasure I get comes from the reading, the research, the serendipitous discoveries, and of course the crafting itself, that I can’t even imagine wanting to do it by a machine. It would be an utterly useless activity for me.
Miyazaki nails it when he lands on the realization that AI is built on a lack of faith in ourselves. We have so catastrophized failure that the mere threat of it stalls people out. We need a culture that embraces imperfect growth over perfect consumption and rally around the idea that we need to take back our culture, our economy, our world from the people that want to hide it all behind a screen.
I think it's telling that most of my students who use AI to cheat do so at the last minute after procrastinating because they're afraid of the bad grade they're going to get. They don't want imperfect growth or failure. Of course, they end up getting a worse (failing) grade than they'd get if they turned in their half baked project they wrote themselves, but I think you're right that there's a real link between appealing to robot saviors and fear of failure and growth.
My son is 18. He is very introspective and all his life has looked at things in terms of what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. (Yes, he inspired my Substack.)
We talk about AI all the time. I predict that he will use AI in his metier in pursuit of what he truly desires and not just in what he is fit to do.
An example of this on Substack is Timothy Winey. It is a sparring partner and also a quick assistant in research for Dr. Winey.
This is a great work and so much I agree with. So I’ll take the odd tact here and raise an opposing point of view. AI and its uses may be just another step for us, humanity, in that oldest of pursuits, immortality. To get there, we must imagine and BUILD existence that lies OUTSIDE OF NATURE, the nature that is based on the cycle of life and death. Who are we to condemn the pursuit of so many, arguably most, people in human history?
Hey Paul. Forgive me for the slow response. This comment was interesting, but I've been very busy! I suppose what we say about it depends a lot on what we think the likelihood is of (A) AI diminishing human happiness now, vs. (B) AI providing a technological avenue to immortality. As you're pressing, if there's even a small chance for (B), that could overrule a large chance of (A), since the value of (B) obtaining would be so high.
The problem for me is that given what I think a human person is (a soul-body complex with a certain kind of relation to God), I don't think AI could possibly be an avenue to extending human life indefinitely. Moreover, I think I've already found the source of immortality (Christ in the Eucharist). So that definitely settles it for me. But I can see how someone who didn't have those convictions wouldn't share my view.
My last thought on this is that history is replete with examples of technocrats making people suffer at one time because of the promise of future benefits, and it has never seemed to get rid of the suffering. So that's a kind of inductive argument that suggests "don't trust those people!"
No worries. 🙂 I say outside of nature, but still knowing that everything exists inside nature, even a supposed immortal being that we might create or evolve into. It is just the horizon dropping out of view further away.
Isn't it interesting how our current beliefs shape our evaluation of a new technology, though not a new question. I am appreciative that we can talk about it while understanding the solution is not "changing" the other's mind. I've come to realize that what I believe wasn't my choice, and wouldn't be for others either. Thanks again.
For me, the most powerful argument against relying on AI is related to a brief comment you made: "When we sell out our capacity to make, we’ve sold out our actual humanity, our birthright."
Our agency, the ability to make choices and act for ourselves, is what makes us human. Giving up this power is giving up an essential part of our fundamental nature.
Really good article. It seems we are hammering another nail in the coffin of class consciousness to eliminate whatever possibility we have for a different way of living that could take us toward happiness
student here, and it feels quite lonely to share this perspective, contrary to the one most of my peers hold.
by bypassing the tasks given to us, we skip opportunities to gain confidence in our knowledge, even expanding it! in the sense that each time we can force ourselves to successfully convey what we are trying to say, we are tying knots, concepts, and ideas in our head, implicitly proving to ourselves what we know or do not know. this self-confidence, as well, leads us to happiness and contempt for who we are.
the root of the problem is the transactional view of education that most students hold, as Ted Gioia states (i believe). note: this is not our fault tho☝🏽
I agree, Isa. The transactional view of education is a subspecies of the transactional view of just about everything. And some things are transactions, but not everything is. A utilitarian/transactional view of the world is inherently degrading to things that are intrinsically valuable, of which education is an obvious instance.
Such a beautiful piece, thank you for this! It reminds me of a quote by Rebecca Solnit that I love:
The self is also a creation, the principal work of your life, the crafting of which makes everyone an artist. This unfinished work of becoming ends only when you do, if then, and the consequences live on. We make ourselves and in so doing are the gods of the small universe of self and the large world of repercussions.
Self trust is huge - experts are even defaulting to AI under the premise that they cannot compete with AI’s extensive knowledge. This erodes self trust.
Thank you for posting this. As a long time AI researcher I have been against the current craze that has no critical foundation and represents a stain on a field that worked for years to establish the complexity of the problems that must be solved. I appreciate hearing from you and the artist that is highlighted. You are most appreciated for your viewpoint and opinion. Thank you Dr. Randy Kaplan.
I would like to say without shame that I am quite uneasy about AI. Aside from all the beneficial approaches and positive views that we have somehow managed to adapt to the new technologies of the past, the concern that a lot of things may be lost in the near future, especially natural resources and ourselves, constantly echoes in the back of my mind. Miyazaki has always been one of my favorite directors, before, during and after film school, and the quotes in this post increased my respect and admiration for him. I don't see his comment as a bigoted comment that is hostile to technology. Maybe it could be called a wise prediction. It is stated that even Socrates said that writing was one of the greatest blows to human memory. At this point I don't know what stance I should take towards this crazy revolution. Unlike previous developments, I sense something in this that makes humanity even more obscure on the stage and glorifies the commodity. Does our fear stem from our arrogance in thinking that we are conscious and unique beings? Or is our inner voice right? I'm just waiting for what will happen -and adding to my existing existential worries whether I'm missing something while I'm waiting. Thanks for the article.
I haven't used AI yet. I feel it might dehumanize me. Isn't it insulting to ask another human to spend their time reading AI generated words? If I were to ask my readers to read artificiality, I'd be dehumanizing them. I took a class on how to use AI, mostly just to see what I might learn. The man (a technocrat) teaching it said he was about to bring his teenage daughters to the lake. He asked AI what teenage girls like to eat at the lake. It spat out predictable answers (wraps, chips, sandwiches, etc) and he was genuinely amazed at its capacity. I was truly shocked at his incapacity. I thought it was sad that he didn't have the social skills to just ask his daughters what they wanted. Instead, he asked a machine. It would never occur to me to use AI in that situation. Most of the situations in that class where AI was used were in regards to creativity, communication, and socializing - the very things that make us human.
That's honestly bizarre. I assume it was in part an attempt to grow closer to his daughters, but the result is very clearly that he alienated himself from them by (like you pointed out) not just asking.
Thank you for this piece. Even though it feels inevitable that the techbros will impose AI upon the world no matter what, I'm glad for every time I hear someone speak up about resistance. It's good to know you're not alone in wanting no part of this. I hope you are able to make some inroads into the young minds you're mentoring and help them avoid the AI trap (I do think it can be avoided, if one develops sufficient discipline and self-efficacy; it's just that opportunities to do so will be even more scarce, moving forward into a world that's ever more driven by algorithms and AI).
Thanks for the encouragement. I think you're right that not using AI will require active resistance, not mere passivity, as things move forward. I do have hope that that culture of resistance is germinating now.
Honestly I am so sorry that you are a teacher in the age of AI, but I am so thankful there are teachers like you who are doing the good work of educating in spite of it.
Thank you for this essay, and for your work with students to help them make good decisions for themselves from a long-term life perspective. I'm fully aligned with your argument.
I'm haunted by the faces of the young men presenting their work to Miyazaki in the linked video, they seem shocked at his reaction as if it was exactly the opposite of what they expected. I felt their reaction from the looks on their faces. And yet I can't escape the feeling that it was the same generational conflict that has taken place throughout the evolution of technology -- they see this as their future (in competition with others to master new technology for anticipated rewards) and masters of the 'old ways' thunder about what's being lost. I'm thundering as well. I wonder about those boys and whether Miyazaki inspired any fundamental change of heart.
Of course I'm thundering my agreement with you and Miyazaki, because from here in my 50s, I'm now one of the older people too. Then I take a step back and put myself in the situation of young students raised with the screens we've provided them, and our shortened, dopamine-addicted attention spans. I didn't have that growing up, and shudder to think about the state of my mind if I had. I didn't like writing the papers either at that age (wish I could have been oriented differently to that!), and if I'd had a compromised attention span and been subject to all the time-sucking distractions that light up our screens, I'd have been tempted to resort at the last minute to letting a machine write for me as well.
So much push and pull in this human condition, best for us all to remain face to face and talk to one another with compassion.
All of this to say, thank you again for what you're doing with your students, and for your insightful essay!
I also was struck by the faces of the young men in the video. The very picture of "crestfallen". You're right though, it's important to put ourselves in the shoes of others. I keep having to relearn that as a teacher, and it's difficult.
You're precisely right. I think genAI is the product of a world that moves too fast and demands too much of humanity, too much of the earth. In a healthy society, it's rejected outright, if it's even invented at all. The good news is that it has been largely rejected, but unfortunately, these companies have the power to ignore the public's opinion. But writing and sharing our criticism pushes back.
It makes me sad to learn that Socrates woefully underestimated the craft of baking.
Well, in his defense, you can imagine that the craft had yet to fully flower in Athens in the 400s BC. Modernity has improved some things. But you really should read the Gorgias and give him a fair shake. It's very good!
I write poetry. So much of the pleasure I get comes from the reading, the research, the serendipitous discoveries, and of course the crafting itself, that I can’t even imagine wanting to do it by a machine. It would be an utterly useless activity for me.
Miyazaki nails it when he lands on the realization that AI is built on a lack of faith in ourselves. We have so catastrophized failure that the mere threat of it stalls people out. We need a culture that embraces imperfect growth over perfect consumption and rally around the idea that we need to take back our culture, our economy, our world from the people that want to hide it all behind a screen.
I think it's telling that most of my students who use AI to cheat do so at the last minute after procrastinating because they're afraid of the bad grade they're going to get. They don't want imperfect growth or failure. Of course, they end up getting a worse (failing) grade than they'd get if they turned in their half baked project they wrote themselves, but I think you're right that there's a real link between appealing to robot saviors and fear of failure and growth.
My son is 18. He is very introspective and all his life has looked at things in terms of what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. (Yes, he inspired my Substack.)
We talk about AI all the time. I predict that he will use AI in his metier in pursuit of what he truly desires and not just in what he is fit to do.
An example of this on Substack is Timothy Winey. It is a sparring partner and also a quick assistant in research for Dr. Winey.
I enjoyed the essay.
This is a great work and so much I agree with. So I’ll take the odd tact here and raise an opposing point of view. AI and its uses may be just another step for us, humanity, in that oldest of pursuits, immortality. To get there, we must imagine and BUILD existence that lies OUTSIDE OF NATURE, the nature that is based on the cycle of life and death. Who are we to condemn the pursuit of so many, arguably most, people in human history?
Hey Paul. Forgive me for the slow response. This comment was interesting, but I've been very busy! I suppose what we say about it depends a lot on what we think the likelihood is of (A) AI diminishing human happiness now, vs. (B) AI providing a technological avenue to immortality. As you're pressing, if there's even a small chance for (B), that could overrule a large chance of (A), since the value of (B) obtaining would be so high.
The problem for me is that given what I think a human person is (a soul-body complex with a certain kind of relation to God), I don't think AI could possibly be an avenue to extending human life indefinitely. Moreover, I think I've already found the source of immortality (Christ in the Eucharist). So that definitely settles it for me. But I can see how someone who didn't have those convictions wouldn't share my view.
My last thought on this is that history is replete with examples of technocrats making people suffer at one time because of the promise of future benefits, and it has never seemed to get rid of the suffering. So that's a kind of inductive argument that suggests "don't trust those people!"
No worries. 🙂 I say outside of nature, but still knowing that everything exists inside nature, even a supposed immortal being that we might create or evolve into. It is just the horizon dropping out of view further away.
Isn't it interesting how our current beliefs shape our evaluation of a new technology, though not a new question. I am appreciative that we can talk about it while understanding the solution is not "changing" the other's mind. I've come to realize that what I believe wasn't my choice, and wouldn't be for others either. Thanks again.
For me, the most powerful argument against relying on AI is related to a brief comment you made: "When we sell out our capacity to make, we’ve sold out our actual humanity, our birthright."
Our agency, the ability to make choices and act for ourselves, is what makes us human. Giving up this power is giving up an essential part of our fundamental nature.
Really good article. It seems we are hammering another nail in the coffin of class consciousness to eliminate whatever possibility we have for a different way of living that could take us toward happiness
student here, and it feels quite lonely to share this perspective, contrary to the one most of my peers hold.
by bypassing the tasks given to us, we skip opportunities to gain confidence in our knowledge, even expanding it! in the sense that each time we can force ourselves to successfully convey what we are trying to say, we are tying knots, concepts, and ideas in our head, implicitly proving to ourselves what we know or do not know. this self-confidence, as well, leads us to happiness and contempt for who we are.
the root of the problem is the transactional view of education that most students hold, as Ted Gioia states (i believe). note: this is not our fault tho☝🏽
I agree, Isa. The transactional view of education is a subspecies of the transactional view of just about everything. And some things are transactions, but not everything is. A utilitarian/transactional view of the world is inherently degrading to things that are intrinsically valuable, of which education is an obvious instance.
Such a beautiful piece, thank you for this! It reminds me of a quote by Rebecca Solnit that I love:
The self is also a creation, the principal work of your life, the crafting of which makes everyone an artist. This unfinished work of becoming ends only when you do, if then, and the consequences live on. We make ourselves and in so doing are the gods of the small universe of self and the large world of repercussions.
Self trust is huge - experts are even defaulting to AI under the premise that they cannot compete with AI’s extensive knowledge. This erodes self trust.
Thank you for posting this. As a long time AI researcher I have been against the current craze that has no critical foundation and represents a stain on a field that worked for years to establish the complexity of the problems that must be solved. I appreciate hearing from you and the artist that is highlighted. You are most appreciated for your viewpoint and opinion. Thank you Dr. Randy Kaplan.
I would like to say without shame that I am quite uneasy about AI. Aside from all the beneficial approaches and positive views that we have somehow managed to adapt to the new technologies of the past, the concern that a lot of things may be lost in the near future, especially natural resources and ourselves, constantly echoes in the back of my mind. Miyazaki has always been one of my favorite directors, before, during and after film school, and the quotes in this post increased my respect and admiration for him. I don't see his comment as a bigoted comment that is hostile to technology. Maybe it could be called a wise prediction. It is stated that even Socrates said that writing was one of the greatest blows to human memory. At this point I don't know what stance I should take towards this crazy revolution. Unlike previous developments, I sense something in this that makes humanity even more obscure on the stage and glorifies the commodity. Does our fear stem from our arrogance in thinking that we are conscious and unique beings? Or is our inner voice right? I'm just waiting for what will happen -and adding to my existing existential worries whether I'm missing something while I'm waiting. Thanks for the article.