As someone who loves flux, I hover between the excitement and anxiety of it, thriving on possibilities one minute and wishing I could turn the clock back to an "easier time" the next. It helps to be of two minds about many things, but sometimes it's downright exhausting.
So many of the proposed ideas I keep coming across have incredible range and variety, but across the board, they all still depend on our initiation, our changes and redirections, our tweaking, our finishing touches. It's all made of our words, all of them, at least all of the digitized ones-- Borges' infinite library. Except...
Except that in the last few days, the Future of Life Institute called attention to the rapid development of generative AIs, and called for a pause to it. The list of signatories includes so many leaders in the field. This is more than a reactionary backlash or a publicity stunt. It's a firm request to give everyone a chance to get their heads around this. As someone who has become exhausted trying to keep up with it and how best to work it into my classes, I wholeheartedly agree.
"Faculty Forum: Learning with ChatGPT," Russell Chun for the American Association of University Professors, March 29, 2023
This brief position statement from the AAUP tries to forge a middle way, neither condemning not embracing ChatGPT the like. At least, that seems like a middle way right now. With asides about testing technology, the future of work, and Sisyphus, it crystallizes what a lot of instructors I've talked with seem to be thinking.
"ChatGPT: Why we're still smarter than machines," BBC Reel, March 29, 2023
This is pretty straightforward, with a focus on adaptability and plasticity of our minds, which a writer-bot lacks. Let's hope that some analog doesn't arise to challenge us.
"A Wharton professor gave A.I. tools 30 minutes to work on a business project. The results were ‘superhuman,’" Steve Mollman for Fortune, March 26, 2023
I know this Penn professor has been enthusiastically integrating ChatGPT into his classes, as I've read about him before. The parallels here remind me of the Microsoft video I watched this week that showed Copilot in action, spinning a report into a slide set and generating template after template of text. While that's just manipulation of media, this professor used Bing, which on its own did market research, created a logo and an email campaign....dang.
"People Are Creating Records of Fake Historical Events Using AI," Chloe Xiang for Vice, March 25, 2023
One of the great fears of GAI is its abuse (by us, not as generated by AI itself). People can weaponize anything, unfortunately. While one user claims he's doing it to "desensitize conspiracy theorists," the last week has also seen AI images of famous figures in unexpected situations, and some people fell for it.
"This A.I. Used Brain Scans to Recreate Images People Saw," Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian, March 9, 2023
Have you ever wanted to transcribe your dreams or memories? It sounds like we're working on that. I am always telling my students they have to learn to communicate since I can't download their brains, but...we'll see. Maybe literally.
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