PicoBlog

I’m sure everybody by now has heard of ChatTGP, developed by Open AI, which will write an entire essay based on a few prompts or questions. It is free so anyone can use it. Among the many comments that have been made about it, the most alarmist ones have come from the teaching profession, both secondary and collegiate educators. Using ChatTGP to cheat, submitting essays written by a computer, and passing them off as one’s own has caused panic among some.

But not all. I’ve attached an article, “Why I’m Not Afraid of ChatTGP,” which appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I’m one of the ones not terribly alarmed. I teach at The New School, now as an adjunct after being an Associate Professor there, heading first the Science Program and then the Environmental Studies one.

Wait a minute. Don’t I think some students will try to submit a piece written by ChatTGP and claim it as their own? Yes, I do, and what is more, I think it is going to get much better and, therefore, harder to detect. But first of all, since learning how to write is one of real skills that will benefit a student for their entire lives, they are only cheating themselves. Sure, students have always tried to cheat. Still, someone – themselves, their parents, donors to scholarship funds, the local, state, or federal government – is paying a lot of money for their education. If students feel comfortable wasting that amount of money, there is a larger issue at play than cheating on a paper. They are throwing away a golden opportunity, one that will be difficult to obtain again. Many, but not all, will realize that wisdom. Youth is sometimes wasted on the young.

But there are many ways in which it can be used for good. Just as someone can go to Wikipedia – which is in some cases much better than Chat TGP, by the way – to get a start so can one use Chat. And it does focus attention on the way we teach. If our teaching solely consists of assigning and correcting essays, it may be time to take a hard look. This is not a newsletter on teaching per se, but the furor over artificial intelligence invading our classrooms does raise crucial questions.

And now David Brooks has weighed in. Asking us to be “human” in the age of AI.

But there may be more, and more serious, consequences of which we have not yet thought. For one thing, it is going to get much better. It might even be able to be “human,” or pretend to be, so we cannot tell the difference. This is but one more example of a potentially “disruptive technology” that demands our attention. An attention that we are ill-served to employ. Ever since the demise of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment there is no government agency devoted to examining the unintended consequences of our rapidly developing and increasingly intrusive technology. Not only that, but we seem not even be able to get a conversation going about the need for such an organization.

When the issue of “race” in human beings became an important political issue, the United Nations arm UNESCO convened a committee – several, actually – to examine the fraught question which issued a report. When it was noticed that we were in an environmental problem, maybe a crisis, the United Nations organized a Conference on the Human Environment in 1973 in Stockholm, the first of several. Out of that grew the United Nations Environmental Program. Justly fearful of “global heating” due to the emission of greenhouse gases, the United Nations has organized the International Program on Climate Change, which brings togther thousands of scientists who prepare reports warning us of the dangers.

Where is the similar activity in regard to disruptive technologies? It is at least as important.

Have I got your attention? Let us turn to facial recognition. It turns out that the powers that be at Madison Square Garden don’t think that lawyers who have sued them deserve to see the Knicks play. Or the Rangers. Or see Billy Joel, for that matter.  So they used facial recognition to bar them from entering. If you happen to be a lawyer who works for a firm that has taken Madison Square Garden to court you may not be watching many games in person.

That is bad enough but if you are a person of color you may be barred because of some resemblance to someone who found themselves in court against the Garden. Facial recognition is notoriously inaccurate when it comes to anything other than a white face. Read the attached articles and weep. The Garden is not the only establishment that is employing this technology.

Racial Discrimination In Face Recognition Technology

522KB ∙ PDF file

Facial recognition, which is ubiquitous, deserves more attention. But this note has gone on long enough. Remember you can always cancel if this becomes too much.

Be safe and well, everyone.

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