RRU: Discussion on AI and Big

Midjourney prompt: “Educational technologist tarot cards”

Background

The vision (and much of the investment capital) of “artificial intelligence” historically has been driven by the “California Ideology”, a heady mix of techno-utopianism, libertarian politics, and old visions of “extropianism”. The massive wealth concentrated in the tech industries has empowered and emboldened its plutocrats.

Audrey Watters described the influence of this mindset on ed tech in 2015: http://hackeducation.com/2015/05/17/ed-tech-ideology

Jean Guerrero: “Transhumanists preach that a command of technology can liberate humans from the limits of mortal flesh. Human destiny is to leave our puny Earth and colonize the stars. Extropians argued that this agenda required rejecting morality, which could interfere with the rapid expansion of technologies that might, oops, destroy the Earth. (No biggie when the goal is infinity!)” – https://archive.ph/A7HDi

A core tenet is the notion of The Singularity: an upgradable intelligent agent will eventually enter a “runaway reaction” of self-improvement cycles, each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an “explosion” in intelligence and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that qualitatively far surpasses all human intelligence. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Midjourney Prompt: “The Dumbularity”

A number of years ago, I developed a personal hypothesis of “The Dumbularity”, as something of a thought experiment.

Core principles of The Dumbularity:

  • A superintelligence that takes over the world will not necessarily announce itself. It may well be in its interests to let humans think they are still in charge.
  • While this superintelligence may have great computing power and be able to do some amazing things with unimaginably large sets of data, there is no reason to believe this entity will have any real wisdom guiding it. After all, it was programmed by humans.
  • As machines act more and more like humans, humans will act more and more like machines.
  • The Dumbularity is not some scenario set in the future. It has already happened, some years ago. That is why reality is so incomprehensible, and why it is so very very stupid.

As recent years have unfolded, I have frequently applied this hypothesis to the strange and disturbing turns in the intersections between technology and humanity. It has yet to be falsified.

Midjourney prompt: “flappy arm tube man is becoming sentient”

Artificial Intelligence, or something else?

Questions for educators:

Do you think that we should be collecting and analyzing student data if it is for the benefit of the students? I.E., offering additional support to struggling students?

Recent case: new analytics dashboard in BigBlueButton. Privacy concerns.

How do we minimize bias in AI systems that are initially programmed by humans with their own biases…

How can institutions best secure all this data so that it is not misused?

What’s new in neuroscience and how is it integrating with AI?

2 or 3 biggest upsides and 2 or 3 biggest downsides for students and educators for collecting, analyzing and using big data and AI in education?

Pertinent cases?

Midjourney prompt: A higher education chatbot designed by David Lynch

What about chatbots? Especially ones in the mental health field.

Midjourney prompt: the dream of open education destroyed by money, by Salvador Dali

Where will teaching, learning, and education be in 2030?