Artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated the news this month and, as a parent and employer of young people, I’ve been wondering about what it means for their future – in education, employment, in terms of ethics and equality, and innovation.
Researching the subject for this blog post – and as an interested parent – took me down plenty of rabbit holes. Opinions about the technology range from wildly optimistic: AI is our saviour! It will solve climate breakdown; provide better, faster solutions to healthcare, education, the economy… On the pessimistic side: there are deep fakes, worries about inaccuracies and plagiarism, and fears that AI will put many of us out of a job. There are also concerns that AI tools, which are trained on and learn from existing information, may amplify gender, racial, or cultural biases in society.
What does this mean for parents and employers?
As someone who grew up in an analogue world, it’s hard to imagine how things will change over the next decade or so. But as parents and employers, we need to help prepare our young people (and ourselves) for this new world, to make sure they have the opportunity to collaborate and compete in a workplace that is changing beyond our imagination. It’s certainly something we’re beginning to think about at Make (Good) Trouble.
It’s clear that we need to educate our young people to better understand what AI is, what it can do, and what its foundations are because a) regulation can’t keep up and b) we can’t shield our young people from what comes next. This learning needs to start in schools but will no doubt need to be lifelong. We should give them the tools and knowledge to be resilient and to deal with and work with whatever the future brings.
What role should AI have in education?
ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 can help with writing, creating images, and generating ideas but there are worries that students will start to lose their cognitive skills if they rely on AI tools to do the heavy lifting for them.
A group of school leaders recently announced that they have come together to create a new body to protect students from “very real and present hazards and dangers” of AI. They state that “AI is moving far too quickly for the government or parliament alone to provide the real-time advice schools need” (The Guardian, 20 May 2023). The question is, should our children be taught to understand and use AI in schools? And how can we expect already overloaded teachers to keep up?
Teachers and lecturers are already having to deal with students using ChatGPT to write essays and exams. Teachers are now using plagiarism and AI detection tools to root out cheats. My daughter also uses these tools to check her work. She’s a fan of ChatGPT. She says it helps with her grammar and research and makes her more confident about it.
Rather than trying to keep up, some experts advise we take a long-term approach when it comes to AI and education. “Our approach to teaching should be guided not by one recent product but by reflection on the lives our students are likely to lead in the 2030s,” argues Professor Ted Underwood, University of Illinois. “What will the writing process look like for them? Will they use models as research assistants? As editors?
“No crystal ball can answer those questions yet. But the uncertainty itself is a reminder that our goal is not to train students for specific tasks but to give them resilience founded on broad understanding.” (Inside Higher Ed, 11 Jan 2023)
I like that thinking, and hope that it is embedded in everyone’s education. Our schools, our curriculum, should be designed to value problem-solving skills, to help young people to be creative and critical in their thinking, to be agile and flexible in their approach to their future and to work.
What does this mean for the future of work?
Many think Artificial Intelligence will reduce the workforce in many areas, and in particular in entry level jobs. This thoughtful piece in The Conversation looks at how AI might affect artists and knowledge workers. The writers argue that whilst technology can be problematic, it can lead to better accessibility, new skills and jobs.
In a recent Guardian discussion, Professor Stuart Russell, founder of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence, argued that human interpersonal skills will be the key to many future careers “where you’re interacting directly with other humans on a one-to-one basis to make people’s lives better” (doing what technology can’t), citing as examples of new job titles: “life architects” and “professional lunchers” (someone who is a paid lunch date offering interesting conversation and company!).
I hope that AI represents an “advance” in technology. I hope it gives all our young people more opportunities to thrive. We just need to make sure they’re equipped with the skills and knowledge to do that.
Further reading
Internet Matters: A parent’s guide to using AI with kids
AI Magazine: The impact of artificial intelligence on kids and teens
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