Evening all,
As we ramp up into the deluge at year's end, it gets slightly difficult to have enough time to actually flex the old brainbox, which is the bit that leads me to mash at the keyboard here. And, as I generally prefer not to talk worthless crap just for #content, I simply won't post if I have nothing of value to say, to myself and to all of you. Having said that, thanks to Jared for sharing his thoughts recently. If you reckon you have something to say and would like to post here (once, or regularly), get in touch.
Moving on for today, this week I was on a panel at SXSW (the sexy, millenial way of saying South by Southwest) with a few wonderful folks. Firstly Amanda White, better known as Youtube superstar accounting academic "Amanda's Audit", and Order of Australia medalist (how does one get that?) invited myself, friend of the blog Cath Ellis, and new friend of the blog Danny Liu to join her at the conference to talk about AI in higher education. It turns out I'm a Luddite, in the original sense of word. But as you'd imagine it's a pretty big topic but there was really interesting agreement among us all that learning is the key thing. Coincidentally, also the most difficult, and one of the least effectively discussed. There's a thousand side roads we can all go down but if unis are to survive (and Cath did raise the prospect of clapboards on windows), we will need to prove to the public that what we say we produce is what we actually produce. Suffice to say, that is simply not the case now. If you missed the session don't worry, we're collectively writing up a piece for future campus and I'll be sure to link to it here when it happens.
This all, in my meandering way, leads me to today's topic of wishful thinking. I've seen so many LinkedIn posts and tweets and emails and brain farts recently that frame generative AI use and the way we respond to it in what I considered to be naive and foolish ways. I had to resist many urges to post all of the screenshots I've taken, but most of these I can capture under the topic wishful thinking.
It seems to me that, in this wild storm of a period, people and institutions are looking for anchors to hold on to in the storm. Whatever they are, people are going to them as comforts, as some sort of surety for their worldview, anything that gives them something to clasp on to, rather than be set adrift.
But in many cases, these things are things people need to let go of. I'll give you an example.
There seems to be an idea floating out there that uni should be fun that if it's not enjoyable we've done something horribly wrong as institutions, that we're abusing students, that our care is insufficient. But the truth is learning is work, and work is hard. No avoiding it. And just as we expect students to learn, now the tables have turned a bit, and we in unis are forced to learn, we don't like it. And so we resort to feel good hits, and wishful thinking.
This is not to suggest moving back to a hyperpunitive, brutalist, version of education but across much of higher ed we've replaced hard work with automatisms, "just do this, collect marks and you'll be fine." Students cheat because it's easier than learning. We don't change assessment because it's easier than the alternative. With generative AI that train has terminated. Students are collecting marks, from their perspective everything is fine. But we know it has all failed, and anyone sensible also knows that we can't swap platforms onto the "AI is our friend" line. That line only goes to a boring town in the middle of nowhere, producing deeply ordinary people, mostly.
I'm going to leave you with a question that has been rattling around my head recently: How can we be AI literate or critical if we know nothing?
Until next time, KM.
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