Let's talk about AI...

... basically because someone really pissed me off

Okay here’s the thing….this is not meant to be a lesson or a didactic essay, it is purely my opinion but someone got my goat in the past week so royally that I could not contain my wrath nor my disdain.

First and foremost, I absolutely 100% support the creators, many of whom I count as friends, who are rightfully appalled and furious about their work being stolen to feed to AI platforms for training purposes so new ‘literature’ can be created or for any other reason. That’s a given. And while our government has taken some steps to redress, there’s still a long way to go. But….and here’s just the first but. Plagiarism has always been a no-no. As a teacher and teacher-librarian for over 30 years, I have always taught this as a fact. We all know it’s a fact. And that’s not just students I’m talking about. I have chastised teachers for decades about lifting images willy-nilly from internet sources without due attribution - or similarly taking liberties with other intellectual property. I have had teachers, despite the mandatory ‘copyright chat’ at the start of each year not only scan an entire book but one then give that scan to her students for them to print out. WTF? and when I stopped the student I caught doing said printing, and then went to the teacher concerned she was (and I don’t doubt it) completely and utterly bewildered because she had ‘no idea’ it was the wrong thing to do. Just so those reponsible for nicking the work of our authors etc to feed their AI platforms are in the wrong - the difference is that they KNOW they are doing wrong.

We’ve been putting student work through plagiarism checkers for decades - same same. And it’s not just AI being used. Within the last month it came to my attention that reviews - all our reviews - from Kids Book Review were being lifted and reposted with no attribution onto a very sketchy Blogger platform. It took quite a lot of work over two days to report both individual cases and then as more and more was revealed the entire blog to Blogger/Google and the page was taken down. Some times the good guys do have a little win. In just the same way I have agitated, signed, supported my creator friends in their campaign about the illegal use of their work.

Now, in the last week someone shared an article about this issue and one of my comments was that we (as educators, that’s my brief) have always had a responsibility to teach students to use technology responsibly and safely. Some of us have been doing that since the internet was first introduced into schools. In just the same way, my argument is that we need to teach them to use AI in a responsible way that does not rob anyone else and still exercises their own creativity and intellect/knowledge. So, one suggestion which I have included at times in classroom resources I’ve written is to choose a character from whichever book is being studied and use contextual clues, descriptive language and their imagination to consider what that character looks like, how they dress etc. And I suggest they can either draw that by hand or digitally or they can write their description as a prompt and put that into an AI image generator particularly if they are not confident or comfortable with their own ability to recreate it artistically. My argument is that - yes we’d love kids to feel that they can all be artists - that’s a separate issue - but that by articulating their analysis and description they are still using their own skills and creativity.

A particular ‘artist’ -well known for cartoon illustrations - arced up and had a go at me saying such things as ‘AI is not a tool it’s an enabler’, ‘You are not doing them any favours’….

My reply was: I'm not going to debate it here or with you, but perhaps think about how much AI you are already using...in one way or another. It's not going away, but teaching ethical usage is part of educating. (Personally I think that was fair comment and not insulting). What do I get in reply?

I turn off as much AI as possible because I have a brain that can think for itself. Why would I farm out thinking? I like using my brain so that it doesn’t atrophy.

There is no ethical way to teach AI usage because it’s based in outright theft.

And saying it’s not going away doesn’t mean you have to use it. Heroin’s not going away either, so, what do you think, let’s all get stuck into it?

WTF? How is that an adult response?? But wait, because it gets worse…………Against all my instincts, I replied.

so your phone? watch? anything on streaming? GPS? banking online? automated message banks? iPads? Photoshop? This platform?? These are just a few of the daily examples of pervasive AI. If a student is feeding their description into an image maker, they are using their own brain to do so and as for your comment re heroin, that's just bloody stupid beg your pardon. Enough. Thanks for coming.

And the reply to that?

Okay, Boomer

What a fuckheaded response ..and note, no comeback on the daily integration of AI and how he does use it!

By happenstance , another creator had referenced an AI writing competition and this same person added this comment -

I've argued with actual teachers here on FB who think it's great and they encourage kids to use it. Some people just don't get it, but teachers? Automatic sacking offence as far as I'm concerned.

Another well-reasoned comment - not.

I personally have never said AI is great and encouraged kids to use it. But it is a fact, that using it ethically must be taught. Just as reasoned logic, providing evidence and being rational in our thinking needs to be taught.

But this goes deeper than that because here’s the thing that really got up my nose and stinks to high heaven. The teaching profession cops enough of a slagging as it is. And I’ll be the first to say that there are plenty of slack ones and there are very likely those who will use AI themselves to alleviate their workload or give kids an easy option.

But here’s the rub. NOT everybody is a moderately successful self-employed artist. Teachers are not self-employed. They are employed in schools which have mandated processes to follow, and they - in turn - are mandated by systems with equally rigid processes and those - in turn - are mandated by a fucking national curriculum. For this person to say that any teacher should be automatically sacked for having their kids use AI has just effectively given almost the entire profession their walking papers. EQ has just rolled out some AI app for students to use - and they’re not the only ones. Do I agree with that? No, I don’t. Do I believe that AI can be and should be a tool? Yes I do.

The problem is NOT AI - AI is not some living breathing sentient being. It is not even some amorphous bogeyman stealth ninja lurking in a dark corner. AI is a piece of highly sophisticated software that has been in evidence for decades. and the problem is that it is being utilised by actual people who are intent on making money from its use. THAT’S the real bogeyman.

So NO - I’m not going to back down on my stance that we must teach students to be scrupulously ethical in their use of ANY technology. But when loudmouths such as this one - who I note never came back on the complete absence of any AI he never uses! so I call BS - call out people like a born-again evangelist, I’m going to just think oh fuck off and go sulk somewhere else. And, at the same time, I’m going to support my friends and colleagues who fight for their own rights to their own intellectual copyright. Meanwhile I was interested to see this, this morning from the wonderful Mandy Patinkin and his wife Kathryn’s podcast. This underlines my PoV entirely - click to watch.