Is It Me, Or Are Some AI Advocates and Trainers Sounding Like Revival Preachers? Its a Tool Not the Foundation for a Ed Tech Religion!

Has anyone else noticed how the educational AI promotional movement has become like a religious revival movement? And, that it is being heavily promoted by those like AI companies, Ed Tech consultants, and even educators who stand to gain billions of dollars and professional recognition because of it?

I recently saw a LinkedIn post, “the official AI Promo Echo Chamber,” where an ISTE AI trainer and consultant actually boasted like he was in a old time tent revival meeting: “I have set out to train EVERY K-12 TEACHER AND COLLEGE FACULTY MEMBER IN THE COUNTRY ON USING AI TO TRANSFORM TEACHING AND LEARNING.”

Pardon my thoughts here, but that sounds like a “fanatic on a mission” not some individual who is thoughtful and measured about AI and its uses. His mission is not to thoughtfully explore the possibilities of AI; it appears his mission is to ram down the throats of educators everywhere his beliefs in the transformative powers of AI technology.

We’ve been here before where Ed Tech advocates boasted about the so-called “transformative power” of technologies, but usually the only thing that gets transformed are the wallets of those selling and consulting for these technologies and the slim budgets of schools scrambling for ways to pay for them.

This ISTE AI trainer and promotional evangelist also boasted about “standing on the stage at Google’s headquarters” training the first cohort of new converts. I can’t even begin to suggest how nefarious this is, for you have a Big Tech company poised to siphon billions more from K-12 to college education than they have already done with their Google Apps and Chromebooks. At the heart, this seems like an AI fundamentalist, evangelistic effort. That is the Ed Tech way in the 21st century.

The problem with AI efforts in education right now is that it is being promoted as “transformative” when Generative AI in its currrent form has only been around for around 4 years. It hasn’t been around long enough to even determine what its long-term consequences might be much less transform anything.

The AI implementation efforts right now, which is clear from the ISTE AI revivalist preacher, is not a thoughtful, careful, and critical examination of AI as a tool; it is “a gospel of salvation wrought through the technological marvels of artificial intelligence.”

These evangelists aren’t interested in training criticial users. Instead, they seem to want to convert the entire educational establishment on behalf of AI companies who are bankrolling the entire movement.

These AI movements have the slight flavor of totalitarian, fundamentalist movements, and “AI zealots” are set out to convert the masses on its saving possibilities even before there is any established research.

And what’s worse, they are engaging in misformation like the notion that AI has been around for years, as stated by one AI promoter, which is not entirely the truth. AI has been around at the edges of our applications, but generative AI is only a more recent development. Those preaching for conversion even sometimes use half truths and even false statements all in the service of gaining converts.

It’s time for educators everywhere to be thoughtful and critical of those who are leading this AI movement. Instead of allowing them to make boasts about the “transformative” possibilities of their favorite technology, its time to question them. During their “training” sessions, when they make claims, ask them to support those claims. Question their evidence. You might even question their affiliations with tech companies and organizations and their sponsors. That certainly can explain their presence.

When a movement like this gains some religious flavors, concerned educators should be skeptical. They should question everything. They should be concerned about what this technology might do to students and even our society years down the road. Most of all, they need to call out this inevitability narrative. 

After all, as historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI: “Technology only creates new opportunities; it is up to us to decide which ones to pursue.” 

It is up to us, all educators, parents, school leaders to decide on which AI opportunities we should pursue. We should not leave that choice to those like Google and their paid consultants and revivialist preachers to make that decision for us.

An Important Component of AI Literacy and Digital Literacy: Teaching Students to Be Critical Users and Not Just How to Work With Technology

Are you educating students to use AI or are you educating students to work with AI? How you approach AI and all technology with your students in the classroom matters.

Educating students to use AI places the technology in “tool” or “utilitarian” status. The tool is subordinate to the user. The user is in control. She decides when, where, why, and how to use the technology. The user controls the technology entirely.

In opposition, educating students to “work with AI” places the technology in equal or dominate status. It is not placed in tool status at all. Instead, the technology enjoys the status of  co-worker and sometimes even supervisor or manager. The student is placed in a partnership relationship or an subordinate relationship to the technology. The student does not have full control of the when, where, why, and how of the technology’s use. He must accept the presence of the technology as an inevitable part of life and even possibly submit to its decision-making and direction. (Is it any wonder why Big Tech wants us to teach this relationship?)

When Ed Tech uses the phrase “Educate students to use AI” or “Educate students to work with AI” it defines the students’ relationships to the technology, so deliberate thought is needed in the way the technology can be empowering to the student, or it can enslave the student. Educators must be deliberate and vigilant in their approaches.

We should be educating students to be potential and critical users of AI, with special emphasis on the critical. We should never teach students to be co-workers or submissive to the technology. Students should be taught that AI and technology has political and other consequences when it is used, not passive acceptance of its use. There are times when AI should not be used, and that should be part of the instruction.

If we want students to be free users of AI we should place students in total control of the technology, not teach them to be passive, submissive users, and this is done by educating them to be critical users not simply users.

Screen Time Bans and Limits Are Really A Search for a Healthy Relationship to Technology

Those who are asking for screen-time limits are people who seek to relieve children from what writer Paul Kingsnorth calls "the eye-glaze of screen burn."

It is a quest for a healthy relationship to technology instead of the almost worshipful stance currently held by so many in Ed Tech.

A healthy relationship to technology is one where all the world, digital to analog, is in the toolbox.

A healthy relationship to technology is not an endless quest to elevate it to the "go-to solution."

A health relationship to technology is the recognition and acknowledgment that even though technology might be used, sometimes it does not have to be nor should it.

A healthy relationship to technology is valuing the human over the Machine always.

Finally, a healthy relationship to technology is one where devices are not a constant intrusion and distraction; they are simply a toaster sitting in the background and used when needed  and not a device constantly beeping like a little child, demanding our attention.

Screen time limits and bans have arisen because of the excesses of a Ed Tech discipline and industry agenda that so desperately wants devices on every desk, in every hand and used during every lesson.

It is time to remove the glitter, gleam and dazzle from devices and treat them as we have microwaves, clocks, watches and power saws: as simply tools.

A New EdTech Definition of a Chatbot

 Definition of a Chatbot:

A cheap way for a company to pretend to care for their customers without really caring at all.

Can also be utilized to replace human tutors when humans are too cheap to pay a real person who cares to tutor.

Also, still another way for EdTech companies to squeeze even more money out of already scarce education budgets.

The Arrogance of Silicon Valley and Big Tech Is Harming Us All

I had my Google Search set up to avoid using the "AI Overview" and after the browser updated it eliminated that option.

This is clearly how Big Tech and Silicon Valley are going to make "AI Inevitable." 

They are going to force it down users' throats.

The AI Overview in Google can't be trusted to be correct and it does not provide access to the sources it uses.

For now, I will simply switch my default search to another search engine.

We are now in an era when Silicon Valley CEOs and Tech Companies think they know better than we do what we want in our tech products. 

Tech companies want to dictate our products. A consumer backlash is starting, and it will be more powerful that simple "Boos at Graduations" too.

When AI Is Said to Be "Here to Stay" It is Perfectly Right to Question the Fictional Narrative

 “AI is here and not going away,” is repeated by every Ed Tech and AI consultant as if it were gospel when speaking about AI’s inevitability. But is it?

That statement is a prediction and not a fact. It can’t be proven. Those who present it as fact have no evidence to point to. They might point to some data that says many students or teachers are using it now, but present use is not evidence of future use, not can it be. To say that “all students are using it” or even “many teachers are using it” is already false, because that is most certainly not possible.

This “prediction” is actually an convenient fiction employed by individuals who have a selfish interest in making it true. Their status, both financial and professional is dependent upon it.

The purpose of this inevitability fictional narrative is to immediately disarm any objections and criticism that an educator, parent, student and educational leader might have about AI and its claimed promises. AI consultants and marketers want to immediately remove any room for criticism, so they use inevitability fiction to counter any criticism.

The second purpose of this “inevitability story” is to absolve their own conscience of any moral questions about its use. Afterall, if it is inevitable, you can’t do anything about it, so accept it. This is the power play here. If an educator has concerns or objections about its use, these are placed out of bounds by the fictional story of inevitability. Just use it!

This inevitability story also absolves AI peddlers’ conscience of any ethical and morality questions about AI. For example, the fact that AI was developed from the theft and use of copyrighted works is ignored. The fact that the infrastructure needed to operate AI is consuming mass amounts of scarce resources and competing with individuals for those resources is dismissed by this inevitability fiction. The fact that AI companies exploited labor in foreign countries badly in training their language models is immediately dismissed.

Every time an educational technologist or AI consultant makes the inevitability tactical move, it immediately needs to be called out for its fictionality. At conferences, during PD, and in writing, thoughtful educators and school leaders need to immediately question these statements and ask for proof, along with proof of any other broad sweeping fictional statements about AI. When a claim is made about AI, ask for proof, and don’t accept as proof a study done by a company or organization that has a self-interest in making AI successful.

AI Detectors Are as Morally Wrong as the Cheating Done by Students Who Submit AI-Generated Work as Their Own

For me, using AI detectors to determine whether a student forged an assignment using Generative AI tools is morally wrong. 

I agree with Carissa Veliz, who writes in her book “Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI”:

“A predictive approach to ethics is likewise inadequate for matters of justice, inside and outside the courtroom. In criminal contexts, merely statistical evidence isn’t enough.”

Because AI detectors use statistics and probability to predict whether a student’s work is AI generated or not, it alone should never be used as the sole evidence for making the determination on whether the student cheated and turned in AI work as their own. This probability of having AI generated material has room for error, and when it comes to dispensing justice, it is inadequate for me. I would not use it alone for detecting whether a student engaged in this unethical behavior. 

In some ways it would seem to me to be akin to the lie detector, which attempts to detect patterns of truthfulness and untruthfulness but can’t tell you whether a person is being deceptive about a specific instance.

Do we then just accept the student’s work as is? Unless we can find some causal evidence, not probable evidence, I think we have little choice, but we can devise ways to ask the student to defend their work and ensure they have invested their experience fully in the learning.

Still, to me the greater problem is that the student chose to cheat to begin with. It is a moral and a trust issue. It is a symptom of a character concern in that student that they would resort to such action, and from a societal standpoint, that should be of equal concern, that a student would choose that course of action to begin with.

What seems like a better course of action rather than simply accusing the student of cheating based on a technology, would be to devise a way that the student must defend their work, without assistance. 

For example, it could be a panel of teachers asking questions designed to ensure that the student was knowledgeable about their work. Criteria could be determined ahead of time that outlines what a successful defense of the work looks like, and the final assessment on the student’s work would be based on that alone.

Ultimately though, we still should acknowledge the moral problem underlying this, which is the same problem that has been beneath cheating since students have been subjected to instruction, which is that a student would deceptively choose to cheat to begin with. AI cheating is in some ways just another high tech cheating tactic.

The solution in this case, is not more technology, though educators, being the tech-solutionists they are, always seem to turn to tech for answers. 

Tech companies love it, because they can sell us a tech that causes a problem, then turn around and sell us another technology to solve that problem, and then another tech to solve that tech’s problem and so on. 

AI detectors are not the answer.

Instead, the answer lies in working toward the goal of helping students become ethically averse to cheating to begin with through moral instruction and character development, educating them to be better than that.

Also, the answer lies in making sure the teaching and learning experience requires the student to demonstrate their learning in ways that can’t be fabricated through AI. This is not a technology problem, but an old educational problem of, “How do I ensure that students have learned?”

It's the Teacher That Matters Most in Teaching and Learning, Not Screens, Not AI...That's The Lesson Needed for School Leaders in All These Screen Ban Efforts

How can I transform teaching and learning to accommodate or integrate AI? THAT is the WRONG question.

The correct question is, if it follows that AI is actually another tool to be used in education should be: How can AI (or any tool) help teachers engage in better teaching and students engage in better learning?

The history of Ed Tech says we asked the wrong questions when the PC, Web 2.0., and social media came along. Then, we asked how can I use these tools to transform and revolutionize, rather than how can these tools be used to facilitate? To equip?

Perhaps that's why Ed Tech and the technology cheerleaders are desperately trying to defend all the technologies it has introduced in education. 

Educators are susceptible to the “glimmer of gadgets” and have been for some time. Instead of asking the facilitating question, they sometimes look to the technologies for salvation, and the result is the present. Now, with little evidence to support a dramatic revolution in teaching and learning, important critical questions are being asked about the rightful place of technologies—screens if you want to call them—in the classroom.

We know how students learn and we have a repetoire of teaching methods at our disposal, and much of the research shows that what makes learning happen is WHAT A GOOD TEACHER DOES WITH THE STUDENTS DURING THE TIME THEY ARE IN HER/HIS CLASSROOM. It is really that simple. 

Yet, instead of looking to the one single individual who has the potential impact on learning the most, we get tangled in our devices, or fanciful technologies if you will, and we forget the teacher. 

I remember the minor debate in my schooling as a student when calculators appeared, (Yes I am that old.), but I don’t recall the raging enthusiasm to transform teaching and learning through the magical powers of the Texas Instrument calculator. It was seen as simply a machine, not a mechanistic path to save education, and we used it when it was useful and did not use it when our teachers determined that it was not useful and an obstacle to what they were teaching and what we were learning.

AI, if it is simply a tool, then let’s kick the pedestal out from under it,  toss out all the hype, and lets just see if it really can help teachers teach and students learn. That has yet to be truly determined, in spite of the mad search for evidence to justify AI existence in the classroom rather than trying to see if teaching and learning improve.

And that is another issue as well, for the AI enthusiasts want their new shiny device so badly to be the salvation in the classroom, that they won’t give it time to demonstrate whether it will be useful or not. 

Generative AI has not been around for more than a few years, and every opportunist under the sun is peddling it as the answer for all our problems, especially those in education. And, if anyone expresses concerns over its issues and problems, they are bombarded with promotional hype and labels of being a Luddite.

If I were to provide some experiential advice to all educators and especially educational leaders, stop listening to the AI cheerleading, and let’s settle down and see if this new technology offers teachers anything to enhance their teaching and students anything to enhance their learning.

Stop looking to technology to transform education. Stop looking for an invention that will somehow make learning happen. We know already what will make learning happen, and that is a well-trained, experienced teacher in the classroom equipped not with the fads of the day, but with she or he says they need to educate students.

Ultimately, let’s remember this: It’s the teacher stupid, that ultimately matters, not the gadgets!

When Tech CEOs Make Predictions About AI, Remember They Are Trying to Dictate the Acceptance of Their Product

When a CEO predicts that AI will replace you, or that everyone will use AI, they are trying to get you to passively accept their future vision.

“Predictions about human beings attempt to change the future by altering what people believe and how they behave, which is why they are veiled imperatives or orders.” Philosopher Carissa Veliz “Prophecy”

Our Tech CEOs know this. They are trying to alter what people believe about AI and alter how people behave towards their product that they stand to make billions.

They want acquiescence to their vision, so their prediction is really a “veiled imperative or order.” “You will accept and adapt to my technology. It is inevitable,” is their meaning.

As Veliz points out, “When the CEO of a tech company says, ‘In the future, everyone will use AI,” he is trying to bend reality to that vision; in a way, he is saying something like ‘Go forth and get your AI before you fall behind! Go forth and fulfill my vision!”

They are dictating the future they wish to see.

Common sense says that we recognize what they are doing and force them to provide AI on our terms. 

#AI #EdTech #AIinEducation #SchoolLeadership #Leadership

Predictions About AI and the Future of Our Students Limit Their Futures and Should Be Questioned

One horrible consequence of all the AI predictions about the future jobs of students is that such predictions are anti-democratic. 

Predictions, when followed as fact, become self-fulfilling prophecies, and that’s what these CEOs from AI companies want, and they know it. Those who have the most interest in its widespread use also know this.

But the reality is, when you make a prediction that “you are preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist,” you taking a shot in the dark, for no one knows that future. Instead of playing a game of job training whack-a-mole, educators should perhaps not prepare students for any jobs, since companies constantly outsource, relocate work to other countries, as well as automate.

Instead, educators should be preparing students for a world of total uncertainty, because that is one sure thing about the future. We shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think we can foresee where they will be and the jobs they will have. Prepare them for a world of uncertainty.

Carissa Veliz, in her book “Prophecy” makes this point about prediction:

“When predictions determine our fate, WE LOSE FREEDOM. DEMOCRACY NEEDS UNCERTAINTY TO THRIVE. It’s only when we don’t know the outcome of a future election that we have democracy.”

By simply giving credence to these predictions about AI and all technologies, the freedom of students is stolen, and that should never happen.

All predictions about AI should be viewed with skepticism, especially from those who have an interest in their acceptance.   Educators and school leaders have an obligation to prepare students, but not one based on these predictions.

Educate Students for Life and Just Ignore Those Who Make Predictions About the Future Job Statuses of Students

“We must prepare students for jobs that don’t exist yet,” says the AI consultant-enthusiast.

“No we don’t,” is the sanest of all replies.

As educators with common sense, what we need to do is ignore these AI consultants and Ed Tech prognosticators completely.

They have no crystal ball and can’t see into the future any better than anyone else.

Predictions are guesses. Predictions are NOT facts. Especially facts to be acted upon or to base life-impacting decisions on what we do with our students.

As philosopher Carissa Veliz writes: “An assertion about the future can be many things—an estimate, a desire, a warning—but never a fact.”

So, educators and school leaders can ignore and discard these baseless predictions about some future notion of what the job status of their students will be.

Their predictions are not substantive enough on which to base decisions about anybody’s life. To do so is severe malpractice.

And, the next time Bill Gates, Sam Altman or Jensen Huang spouts some prophecy? Take it for what it is: a prediction no better than that of a soothsayer predicting based upon his view of a pig’s entrails. They are just hyping for business.

Instead, you are an educator and smart enough to figure out AI for yourself and what place it should have in your teaching. You have to consider the long-term view when it comes to students’ lives, and AI may or may not be a part of that. Only the future knows.

Beware of the Soothesayers of Silicon Valley Who Use Algorithmic Entrails and Tea Leaves to Tell Us Our Future Lies with AI or Any Other of Their Inventions

 “Today’s ruling soothesayers are no longer astrologers, astronomers, sociologists, or even economists; they are computer scientists, data analysts, and engineers. Algorithms are the new tea leaves, animal entrails, and stars through which we hope to catch a glimpse of the future.”

from the book “Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI by Carissa Veliz

I just have a picture in my mind of the Bill Gateses, Sam Altmans, and Jensen Huangs, bent over algorithmic entrails, and the entire world sitting on the edge of their seats, waiting for the  these “infallible tech CEOs” to declare for us our future.

Our Soothesayers of Silicon Valley and their algorithmic tea leaves and algoritmic entrails continue each day to make self-serving and profit generating predictions for themselves.

I think we need to remember that predictions are not facts, whether you are using algorithms or pig intestines.

Educators need to be skeptical and take all that these Soothesaying CEOs and business leaders say with a grain of salt.

AI Is Not an IT Problem? It's a Leadership Problem? What Nonsense...School Leaders Need to Be More Critical of AI Consultant Claims

Recently I saw a post where an AI consultant said that "AI is not an IT problem, it's a leadership problem." What nonsense!

So now, they are going to blame the leaders of school districts for a Silicon Valley creation that:

1) steals the copyrighted work of other authors to use in their training models,  

2) in their LLM training they exploited low-wage workers in poverty-stricken parts of the world, 

3) this product can create facsimile products that can pose as the work of creators to steal their livelihoods, 

4) data centers for these products require massive amounts of power and water, often strapping the communities who have these deceptively forced upon with resource shortages, 

5) these data centers are also having noise pollution issues in the communities where they are being placed. 

6) there is growing concern about cognitive outsourcing for students and the consequences of that in children's futures.

7) Who knows what consequences that are yet to come...

So this AI consultant says, no, there's nothing wrong with AI, and that the problem is with school leaders.

The real problems with AI consultants and opportunists who are ignore the problems with this technology and already declare it as the savior of education, all for what has to be self-interest.

Added to this problem are school leaders believe such nonsense and hire these companies and consultants simply because AI has been mystified to the point that they think they can't possibly understand it. They are wrong. AI is not difficult to understand.

Isn't interesting that no matter the technology, it is flawless and causes no problems? It's always the educators, the leadership, the parents...or whatever the AI consultant can shift the blame to. It's standard sales tactics when you do not want someone to really look at the problems with a technology.

Good, solid leadership sees through all of these AI consultant sales pitches and cheerleading and acts accordingly. Be critical of all the AI Promo Rhetoric!