AI and the Devaluing of Knowledge
Photo by Niklas Ohlrogge (niamoh.de) on Unsplash
As I’ve been exploring and pondering AI this month one major issue continues to be at the forefront of my mind. The flippancy with which so many people, young and old, are willing to offload their thinking and learning to these new tools is deeply concerning. My wife is an English professor and she has seen a dramatic rise in students willing to outright cheat in her class. The crazy part is they aren’t even very good at using AI so it’s very apparent that they’re cheating most of the time. It’s been extremely disheartening to watch her and her colleagues be bombarded with extreme levels of cheating, and frankly disrespect.
Now I’m not trying to say it’s anything new that college and high school students are cheating. Tale as old as time. Hell educators have probably had similar issues and worries throughout the internet era as new technologies emerge. This time, however, it feels a little different as many folks are trying to embrace this new technology in a way that’s detrimental to the very foundations of learning. I see tech tools as great shortcuts for people who’ve put in the work, built the base knowledge, and gained the ability to take shortcuts in smart and efficient ways. People being willing to offload their thinking and leg work to AI is going to lead to a flattening of thinking and culture in a way that frankly is very fucking scary.
Recently when I was listening to (Cal Newport’s podcast)[https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-questions-with-cal-newport/id1515786216] he mentioned the idea of needing to build in time to your day or week where you force yourself to do mental exercise. He made the comparison to how modern humanity had to build physical exercise into our lives in post agricultural society as we weren’t moving our bodies nearly as much in modern office work. Engaging with writing, learning a new skill, going on a phone free walk, listening to a new album all the way through by yourself; all of these are stretching our brain and building up mental muscle that many seem willing to let atrophy. Cal Newport and I, currently, are nowhere near being an AI doomer. But I think his point lends itself to the idea that we need to be much more cognizant of the implications of new technologies before we embrace them wholly and give up our agency.
I don’t know about you but I don’t want to live in a world where everyone has ChatGBT write all their essays and emails. For the sake of all of us, and especially our educators, I hope we land in a place that realizes the value in a well trained and well rounded mind.