AI and education: the great misunderstanding
Do you really think I'm going to start this article by repeating that misleading vagueness about the problem not being technology but how it's used, etc.? In a way, I just did, but sarcastically. Let's leave that vagueness aside, because you'll find plenty of pre-digested clichés elsewhere. However, there's a fairly common misconception on this subject that needs clarifying. Today, we tend to identify technology with something as hyper-concrete as the tangible results of digitization, but a violin, for example, is (cutting-edge) technology that has been refined since the 17th century. A bicycle or glasses are technology, and so are an elevator, a can opener, or a refrigerator. Human beings are descended from an opportunistic and violent ape that didn't have great physical capabilities, but was somewhat more cunning than its neighbors; Desmond Morris already explained this in 1967. The naked apeWe've gone from flint to silicon, which are more or less the same thing and have the same function: to complete us. Keep that verb in mind, because it's what will guide this article. Without the help of technology, no human being can face an elephant or run like a gazelle, but it turns out we end up dominating them and, depending on how, eating them. So far, flint. Now we move on to silicon. However good someone is at mental calculation, there's no one capable of solving certain arithmetic challenges at a reasonable speed without the help of a calculator or some similar tool. Technology, therefore, completes us.
And then, in November 2022—that is, just four days ago—ChatGPT burst into our lives. Bam! It wasn't a super search engine, nor was it a super virtual encyclopedia, it wasn't... So what was it? Despite having precedents, generative artificial intelligence (GAI) represents something else entirely and marks a dizzying turning point. The key question is: does it complement us or replace us? We are in the infancy of a transformative process with an uncertain trajectory, and consequently, we lack the slightest historical perspective to deliver one verdict or the other. However, I have heard—let's say—reassuring comparisons that are somewhat embarrassing, such as: that was also said about the first calculators, or the first televisions, or the first personal computers, or even the poor old fax machine, which lasted an afternoon. It is true that striking hyperbole was generated around these technologies; Such warnings had already been issued regarding the railway, for example (it was claimed that that unprecedented speed of 50 or 60 km/h could have various and serious health consequences). And it's true that calculators and computers changed the way we teach and learn. However, this doesn't mean they can be seriously compared to the impact of IAG, among other things because it's associated with a device that most people carry with them day and night: the mobile phone. Nobody walked around with a television, obviously, and I don't know any young person my age who always carried a calculator in their pocket (nowadays there are some poor souls who say: "Well, I had a cousin in Gandesa who..."). The calculator saved you the ordeal of solving a cube root; on the video, you could watch a documentary that illustrated and complemented the teacher's explanation. It complemented it, but in no way replaced it. Nor did it replace the student's effort, because to understand the explanation or to solve a problem —to get an education— a calculator, or TV, or anything like that was not enough.
The great misconception in education, then, is lumping together technological elements that facilitated and complemented learning with a tool that directly replaces it through textual, figurative, musical, and other simulations. This misconception rests on an even worse one: believing that educating, informing, or even formatting are equivalent actions. I suppose there's a genealogical link between this new situation and the typical—and widespread—sham class based on PowerPoint puppets. The future? An absurd cycle: people posing as teachers reciting a text generated by ChatGPT to boys and girls posing as students who hand in another symmetrical text also generated by artificial intelligence. In the back of the room, docile bureaucrats are thrilled because some teachers seem less stressed and students no longer make spelling mistakes. Not a single one, listen!