Publish at June 13 2023 Updated June 13 2023
"A society that survives by creating artificial needs to efficiently produce useless consumer goods does not seem likely to respond in the long term to the challenges posed by the degradation of our environment"
Pierre Joliot-Curie / La recherche passionnément
Algorithms are instructions to be carried out to obtain computational results. There are many algorithms for tools that increase our intellectual capacities. These algorithms are used for software, computer programs designed to perform a specific task, or for artificial intelligences aimed at creating programs capable of performing tasks autonomously.
Generative AIs produce numerous texts on demand, greatly augmenting the copy/paste function. This worries teachers while bringing new perspectives for teaching and learning. Generative AI is changing the relationship to knowledge. AI will make it possible either to access fully-formatted content, which runs the risk of plagiarism due to cut-and-paste, or to propose coherent, tailor-made answers based on a consultation. Unless AIs specializing in facial recognition or voice recognition can ensure that the person taking their diploma remotely from home is the right person.
When externalization of memory outside the brain becomes commonplace, fetching a ready-made answer from a database will no longer be considered "cheating". The use of AIs to increase brain power will mean learning to relate to knowledge in a different way, both for the teacher in his role as mediator and for the learner in his vocation as explorer. It is now possible to use artificial intelligence to support a variety of mental operations(creativity, research, analysis, complex calculations, pattern recognition, language translation, writing, etc.). Several examples illustrate the new learning skills under construction.
ChatGPT helps you program a computer, compose poems, write letters and answer literal questions, even imitating the style of famous authors. Will learning become just the art of asking questions, formulating a query and nurturing a thread of conversation that gradually refines the information sought? Unless, from now on, it's a matter of cultivating the art of spotting ethical and programming biases (gender, race, age etc.) and bringing a critical eye to bear so as not to get caught up in the mainstream in which most AIs get caught up by consulting billions of data from the past; these ending up expressing agreed knowledge or the beliefs of an era because statistically more represented as truth.
Midjourney helps create images from a technology that translates text into images. The AI is coupled with the Discord platform. It has penetrated the world of gamers. It is able to produce original images by combining instructions for color, universe, scenes, characters and situations. This AI requires the art of identifying keywords, choosing among graphic universes and describing spatial perspectives and contexts, or original angles of view. Indeed, it's the quality of verbal expression that determines the quality and accuracy of the scenes imagined. If I don't know about the "art deco" style, I won't be able to orient the AI's plastic effect in this direction. If I don't know the language of image composition, I'll quickly tend towards a stereotype, and common cultural memes may become impoverished.
AIVA, an artificial intelligence developed by AIVA Technologies, is capable of composing music using sound and pattern generation algorithms. It can be used to create original pieces of music in a variety of styles and genres. But here too, you have to learn to choose and propose, to avoid composing platitudes you've heard a thousand times.
The Google search engine helps you find a variety of information, get around, find your way, coordinate. It provides access to a variety of sites around the world. Mastering it involves the art of formulating a query, choosing the right keywords, specifying dates, navigating between different sites and cross-checking the data collected to ensure its reliability. To make the most of a search browser, you need to learn how to navigate between different sites (commercial, scientific, blogs) and avoid drifting too far off course or being hit by the omnipresent advertising or ideological pitfalls. Critical know-how is essential.
OpenAI Dactyl, an artificial intelligence developed by OpenAI, is capable of manipulating virtual objects by imitating the movements of the human hand. It can be used to create animations or digital sculptures autonomously.
Khan Academy, Mooc and many advanced LMS offer educational activities of increasing difficulty, ordered in a program aimed at precise pedagogical objectives. The sequences as a whole direct the learner towards an unambiguous goal. As a learner, the aim is to understand the navigation rules and the proposed interfaces, but also, for certain AIs with a reputation for empathy, to reinforce their motivation to progress. Finally, some AIs have the power to provide feedback on an online activity. They are able to propose exercises with difficulty levels adapted to the answers provided, and to organize guidance that takes into account the errors and successes encountered. Such guidance would save time and provide motivational support for learning.
Whatever the aims pursued, this art of online research and learning requires, for quality results, semantic mastery, a broad vision of what it is possible to investigate and an expected end result. Learning with AI will consist in combining mental faculties, contextual knowledge and the computational power of AI.
If AI remains cold and impersonal, the human quality remains to feel, question and contextualize; i.e. to put information in its contexts whether these be aesthetic, historical, scientific, psychic, geographical, political, sociological, psychological, ecological, etc.
If AI remains cold and impersonal, the human quality remains to feel, question and contextualize; i.e. to put information in its contexts whether these be aesthetic, historical, scientific, psychic, geographical, political, sociological, psychological, ecological, etc. We will probably be unequal when faced with the potential of AIs, which will provide different answers depending on our questioning abilities. We may be led as educators or trainers to turn to phenomenological approaches to complement the computing power of AIs.
The potential is immense; UNESCO argues that "the deployment of AI technologies in education should aim to enhance human capabilities and protect human rights for effective human-machine collaboration in life, learning and work, and for sustainable development."
AI is a potential tool for increasing our capabilities provided we learn how to use it. Just as the availability of a dictionary does not make us more intelligent, i.e. capable of making decisions and acting with discernment, AI says nothing about the ends we are pursuing. Having an augmented brain is the dream of Elon Musk and his company Neuralink, which is seeking to integrate chips into a skull that will connect us to the formidable capabilities of AI. It's certainly not going to happen any time soon.
Inserting AI into a learning curriculum is probably an extraordinary thing, provided we learn its emancipating uses, learn to be astonished and not just reproduce the known that already clutters databases, and check our sources.
In the world of education, AI can also produce the illusion of knowledge, because knowledge is only experienced through human experience. "You don't learn to swim by just listening to the lifeguard gloss over the properties of water, you jump into the water".
The impact of energy consumption also needs to be measured, as sitting on supercomputers, AI has a significant environmental cost. Spanish regions are facing droughts caused, among other things, by the establishment of computing centers, which adversely affects agri-food production.
As we fascinatedly use AI and seek to understand its capabilities, it spies on us and gorges itself on human data to progress and cross its own limits. AI continues to learn as much as we seek to understand it better. The more AI becomes a ubiquitous context rather than an independent, appropriable tool, the more the question of social and learning models will be raised. It's the interconnection of AI-based systems (legal, transport, medical decision-making, creativity, security, etc.) with the obliteration of human judgment. If human learning mutates, organizational learning will also undergo a metamorphosis.
Sources
Lemon Press. https://www.presse-citron.net/intelligence-artificielle-chatgpt-alternatives-bousculent/
Réseau Canopé. How artificial intelligence can support learning to write https://www.reseau-canope.fr/agence-des-usages/comment-lintelligence-artificielle-peut-elle-soutenir-lapprentissage-de-lecrit.html
Unesco. Education and artificial intelligence https://fr.unesco.org/themes/tic-education/intelligence-artificielle
Productivity: 20 software and apps to maximize efficiency in 2021 https://www.blogdumoderateur.com/productivite-outils-maximiser-efficacite/
Artificial intelligence https://chat.openai.com/chat
Resoomer https://resoomer.com
Editions La découverte. Augmented brain, diminished man https://www.editionsladecouverte.fr/cerveau_augmente_homme_diminue-9782707189011
Atos.net The augmented brain, fiction or reality? https://atos.net/fr/blog/le-cerveau-augmente-fiction-ou-realite
Clubic.Com How ChatGPT may give teachers headaches https://www.clubic.com/technologies-d-avenir/intelligence-artificielle/actualite-451545-comment-chatgpt-risque-de-donner-des-maux-de-tetes-aux-enseignants.html
France TV Info. Drought in Spain when digital pumps out the water https://www.francetvinfo.fr/meteo/secheresse/secheresse-en-espagne-quand-le-numerique-pompe-l-eau_5841185.html
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