AI is not inevitable.

[olivia@scholar.social]

@UlrikeHahn @apostolis I don't fully grasp what I did that makes one think I am against different analyses here? So each featured paper here analyses AI from a different angle pretty clearly with different actors: https://olivia.science/ai/#featuredresearch e.g. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

[ulrikehahn@fediscience.org]

@olivia @apostolis I don’t think I said you are against different analyses?

the point I was trying to make is simply that what is breaking things right now is a confluence of forces and actors. If we are going to counter the destructive effects we need a systemic analysis of how these forces are interacting.

I don’t take you to be someone who would object to that in principle

I suspect what we do have disagreements on is what the relative importance of these different forces and actors are, and what’s required to push back as a result (even in principle)

[lednabm@stranger.social]

@olivia Absofinglutely.... true!!!

[olivia@scholar.social]

@UlrikeHahn @apostolis

"Most importantly of all, resistance can and should take on many forms. Remember to rest and take care of yourself and your community. If talking to friends and colleagues is easy, then try to engage them on these issues. If it is not possible to do so, you can instead (or in addition) seek out allies online."

We've been here before!

Parallels between AI and tobacco, and other warnings.

https://olivia.science (olivia.science)

[abucci@buc.ci]

@UlrikeHahn@fediscience.org @apostolis@social.coop @olivia@scholar.social There is very little that could be credibly called organic adoption when it comes to AI. It is being fiercely pushed in support of multiple hundreds of billion dollar investment. People are being told repeatedly, in every channel, that AI is inevitable, is here to stay, etc. It is disingenuous to place this responsibility at the feet of students, throw up your hands, or ask someone else to tell you what to do about it. That kind of behavior from people empowered to know and do better is the problem.

[yhancik@thereisno.computer]

@olivia this feels good to read again just the day after we (finally) had a first meeting in school to discuss AI (and of course I shared the paper!).

But god, the belief in inevitability is so deeply engrained.

[lednabm@stranger.social]

@UlrikeHahn @apostolis @olivia

Wow.... interesting discussion, folks. Thank you. I'm a long way from university level experience, being an engineer in the electronic design industry for over 40 years. We've gone from one computer to share among engineers thru now to AI assistance across our individual computers. IMHO, we need to separate what AI can do from what they do. Humans, almost instinctively anthropomorphise everything. FFS... people still worship an imaginary AI in the sky and.... 1/2

[lednabm@stranger.social]

@UlrikeHahn @apostolis @olivia 2/2 ... call it their god(s). I think the best resistance is to cooperate. After all, no matter how human these things can seem, they will never be more than tools. As humans, we "feel" a lot. We need to not let our feelings blind us to what these new tools can do. I'm no teacher. I've found that my method of communication doesn't do well explaining to others how to think, instead of what to think. I just know the tools we use evolve all the time....

[ulrikehahn@fediscience.org]

@abucci @apostolis @olivia I’m going to point you toward the scare quotes around the word “organic” in my post, which are there for precisely those reasons.

I am also going to push back against the notion that I am “placing the responsibility at the feet of students”: I am simply describing the (widely documented) problem in higher education that students are using AI tools in significant volumes *even where there use is explicitly sanctioned and forbidden*.

That is the concrete problem of AI now undermining higher education. Asking what “resisting AI” is supposed to mean for me in that context seems legitimate to me, and if it’s not, Olivia (who I’ve known for a long time as an academic colleague) is more than capable of telling me that herself.

[lednabm@stranger.social]

@abucci @UlrikeHahn @apostolis @olivia

Wouldn't an approach where the AIs have to pass the class as students, be better. After all, regurgitating data is not the way to learn how to think. As for the pollitical/economics of the whole mess, well, that's on us to some extent. It's a problem educated people deal with all the time, even among each other. IMHO, humanity is still growing up. We've not abandoned our superstitions for the hard real wonder of actual nature. Is AI part of our nature?

[ulrikehahn@fediscience.org]

@lednaBM @abucci @apostolis @olivia if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting we, in an sense, embrace AI and treat it in such a way that makes it better (ie accept it as students)? if yes, I don’t personally really want to make AI systems ‘better’ - they are causing huge damage and disruption at current levels of performance. I’d personally rather put a brake on that.

[lednabm@stranger.social]

@UlrikeHahn @abucci @apostolis @olivia

I understand what you're saying, and maybe language is not serving us well. You seemed to have juxtaposed helping it be better versus creating a disruption. And again, maybe I fully don't understand the dilemma. When I need very technical information that I can not recall or need help with, I would go to a book or a specification. Now, I can ask AI, check its results, and decide whether I can rely upon what's being presented. It's a tool... 1/2

[lednabm@stranger.social]

@UlrikeHahn @abucci @apostolis @olivia 2/2 tools generally need calibration. Is it possible to use the disruption you speak of as a teaching moment? I don't know. Am I being foolish about the political/economic consequences of those benefitting from the disruption? Maybe. I agree with the original poster. We should have free education, health care, and representation in the way we govern ourselves. Problem there is, IMHO, the white elephant that is religion working against secular human values..

[ulrikehahn@fediscience.org]

@lednaBM @abucci @apostolis @olivia I think one of the problems, particularly in the context of education, lies in the idea that “now I can use AI to give me an answer and check the results”. It is precisely the “ability to check the results” in a particular scientific or academic discipline that higher education degrees are trying to provide. Leaning on AI to “find” answers by students is undermining the learning of the skills that underpin “the ability to check”.

[lednabm@stranger.social]

@UlrikeHahn @abucci @apostolis @olivia
That's a great point. Teaching youth only to rely upon AI sounds like a mistake. I guess I have trouble with the notion that AI is anything more than a tool. Its applications threaten a lot, probably a lot beyond its scope, but not beyond its profit scam. Hopefully, some applications are identified as misapplications. I'm reminded of Huxleys Brave New World. Will AI be the soma drug to placate the masses, even though they were designed to be placated.

[aoanla@hachyderm.io]

@lednaBM @UlrikeHahn @abucci @apostolis @olivia At the risk of butting into this conversation, I think the problem here is that you think that "just a tool" is a neutral concept.

Tools, by their very nature, change the way we interact with the world. Cars are "just a tool", but dependence on cars for transport has both positive and negative effects, because of how their use changes how we behave (and what other things we want to change about the world now "we" want to use cars all the time). Is "car-using humanity" healthier than "pre-car humanity"?

In this sense, even if "AI is just a tool", the existence of cognitive tools *clearly* implies that use of them will change the way people behave - *regardless* of any concept of "applications being identified as misapplications". Dependence on a tool for *thinking* feels inherently more problematic than dependence on a tool for travelling distances...

[ulrikehahn@fediscience.org]

@aoanla @lednaBM @abucci @apostolis @olivia that’s very well put!

[abucci@buc.ci]

@lednaBM@stranger.social @UlrikeHahn@fediscience.org @apostolis@social.coop @olivia@scholar.social The fact that you can selectively ignore the strings of a marionette does not mean it is alive, part of our nature, or able to attend and pass a course. I suspect this is even obvious to AI!