In one the courses I’m teaching this term, I’m using some class sessions to address AI. This video is the concluding component.
But I don’t want to teach about AI. So, in the other course I’m teaching this term, I’m including this video, but I’m not (or, at least, not currently) building any evaluation of AI into the curriculum.
Which approach will work better? I don’t know.
I do know that, in the spring of 2023, I noticed — especially in the latter half of the semester — some strange responses to my assignments. People providing quotations that definitely weren’t in the book. Or quoting text from a wordless book. And I was reading student prose that was both grammatically correct and empty. The sentences were OK, but they spoke in generalities, cliches. The diction may have been elevated, but they were really boring sentences.
So, in the fall of 2023 and the spring of 2024, I brought some AI into the curriculum. I wanted my students could see what it could and couldn’t do. I hoped to dissuade them from using AI unless it was part of an assignment. Each semester, one or two students still cheated with AI. But, for the most part, students did the work.
However, these large-language AI applications are built on the theft of others’ property, they have a massive environmental impact, and using them deters students from learning to think. As a result, I find myself less interested in the “here are the benefits, here are the disadvantages” approach.
So, I’ve created this new video. Will it persuade students? Or yours? (If you find it useful, feel free to use it.)
Sources cited in video:
- Alexandra Petri, “I hate the Gemini ‘Dear Sydney’ ad more every passing moment.” The Washington Post. 31 July 2024.
- Brian Calvert, “AI already uses as much energy as a small country. It’s only the beginning.” Vox. 28 May 2024.
- Joyeeta Gupta, Hilmer Bosch, and Luc van Vliet, “AI’s excessive water consumption threatens to drown out its environmental contributions.” The Conversation. 21 Mar. 2024.