I’m surprised at the lack of mention of any drawbacks or concerns—ethical or intellectual— when encouraging students to use AI in the ways you mention. I love the idea of using AI as a conversational or dialectical thought partner, but what about the problem of sycophancy or the fact that they’re really not designed to challenge you, but rather to make you feel good and keep you using the tool? I’m also concerned about students outsourcing their thinking to AI to the extent that they don’t build the muscle to do cognitive tasks without AI. Are these concerns you share? If not, I’d love to hear why not!
The sychophancy is a concern and also, one can show students how to look for it or even diminish it through custom instructions or particular prompting strategies.
Your points are well taken in that there are concerns about all of this and it's something that is brought up regularly in this substack but is not something I'm going to bring up in every single post. Also, we discussed some concerns in the first part of the interview.
And to be honest, there's an abundance of writing, talking, and criticism about what AI may do to us and how that might impact learning throughout the internet.
I’m surprised at the lack of mention of any drawbacks or concerns—ethical or intellectual— when encouraging students to use AI in the ways you mention. I love the idea of using AI as a conversational or dialectical thought partner, but what about the problem of sycophancy or the fact that they’re really not designed to challenge you, but rather to make you feel good and keep you using the tool? I’m also concerned about students outsourcing their thinking to AI to the extent that they don’t build the muscle to do cognitive tasks without AI. Are these concerns you share? If not, I’d love to hear why not!
The sychophancy is a concern and also, one can show students how to look for it or even diminish it through custom instructions or particular prompting strategies.
Your points are well taken in that there are concerns about all of this and it's something that is brought up regularly in this substack but is not something I'm going to bring up in every single post. Also, we discussed some concerns in the first part of the interview.
And to be honest, there's an abundance of writing, talking, and criticism about what AI may do to us and how that might impact learning throughout the internet.