Geoff Johnson: I remain appalled that higher ed has largely embraced AI, or at best not taken much of a stance. The public university where I teach held a huge IT conference (with industry peeps) in the last academic year where essentially every panel was devoted to how to use AI in our classes. I did not... 🗃️

I remain appalled that higher ed has largely embraced AI, or at best not taken much of a stance. The public university where I teach held a huge IT conference (with industry peeps) in the last academic year where essentially every panel was devoted to how to use AI in our classes. I did not... 🗃️

So. Google just released an internal paper about the epistemic, ethical, and sociopolitical threats of generative "AI," and golly gee whiz if that doesn't sure as shit sound familiar. 🤔🧐😒🙄 www.404media.co/google-ai-po...

Google: AI Potentially Breaking Reality Is a Feature Not a Bugwww.404media.co “While these uses of GenAI are often neither overtly malicious nor explicitly violate these tools’ content policies or terms of services, their potential for harm is significant.”

find any panel where the premise was, "hey--why in the hell would we use this crap? Do we, particularly those of us who teach in the humanities, want this at all?" I teach reading and writing skills for pre-matric students and US history. Generative AI is a curse not a gift for most of what... 🗃️

I want to do. It's antithetical to most of my pedagogical practices, since in my classes I want us to be reading, discussing, and writing--with our own brains. Why should I incorporate some tech bros' get-rich-quick-bot into my class? It's nuts and admins in higher ed are, predictably, largely... 🗃️

on the wrong side, perhaps because they see tech money flowing their way if they get on board with AI. I honestly don't know what the deal is, but we need to be talking about it a lot more. As a history teacher, the idea that this mindless generative AI is already bending popular understandings... 🗃️

of the past *but also the present*--essentially poisoning future archives, in a sense--is appalling. I'm curious to know if serious conversations about the harms of AI are happening at other academic institutions, rather than the blithe acceptance of its inevitability that I've seen so far. 🗃️

📌

A colleague was shocked that I’m an “AI virgin” and then explained spending a whole day trying to get it to create a graphic. I just can’t imagine what I’d use it for.

The only thing I could really imagine using it for personally would be quickly pulling together a list of academic sources on a specific topic. Maybe it does that well, I don't know. My students use it to write (partially or wholly) class assignments. I don't blame them for that but it still sucks.

I've been able to have some good, honest conversations with students about it and think of some ways to avoid the issue. For now my classrooms have a no AI rule which maybe will have to change some day. I imagine we might just stop teaching writing to at least some degree eventually, which is awful.

I had a student use it for a paper on Borges last year. It made up quotes and turned a story into one with quite the opposite point.

Borges probably would have had some stuff to say about AI.

Or Pierre Menard, in any case

I attended a similar conference at another university, and same deal: not a single negative word, and all speakers apparently felt like they had to jump on board and explain why using AI in classes was definitely a good idea and nothing could go wrong.

Yes exactly! It's concerning that this seems a common experience. At one of the panels I attended--where the presenters/profs were perfectly lovely and thoughtful--I brought up the whole "but AI actually stinks for our classrooms" and we had a quick group conversation, but that was it for the day.

My husband teaches high school English and the KeyNote speaker in August was all "AI in the classroom". Matthew was enraged. The District gave students permission to use AI on essays. BUT on the final essay exam, there is no internet. So, Matt will get judged on if they pass / fail. Makes no sense

It's nuts. "Permission to use AI on essays" is like "permission to use an app to do every math problem." It potentially short circuits basically all real learning. New tech changes how we teach, but AI was not designed as an education tool and there's been no meaningful discussion about its use.

YES. That is what Matt tried to point out exactly—that they are learning NOTHING. And he isn’t allowed to ask AI if it made the papers—"that violates our students’ privacy to put their work into AI"—and the whole thing is cyclical BS. There are no guardrails for AI. I hope it careens off the road.

i think it can be a good tool but holy hell are they pushing it! like some door-to-door salesman who just won’t leave.

I definitely see the usefulness--mainly in areas I don't know about--and am sure could find some useful applications (though for now I'd rather stay away from the whole endeavor because it's gross/has a nasty effect on decarbonization). But the lack of pushback from the education sector isn't great!

I would counter that any real usefulness is only in areas you *do* know about - enough to vet the results for subtle error, nuance, or outright hallucination. The troubles really kick in where expertise is absent, and reliance on gAI outputs as given increases. But - yes. this is a broad challenge!

oh and i agree. people are better served when they don’t just passively accept whatever. “what problem does it solve?” is usually my go-to with evaluating new things.

i did mean it broadly. was thinking specifically of quick translations while online, having discovered yesterday several AIs are good at translating even words with highly stylized lettering.

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