Unthinking Robots for the Man?
AI, of course, stands for artificial intelligence, and I’ve played with it here at Bracing Views. I’ve used ChatGPT and DeepSeek to write critical essays on the military-industrial complex, critiquing the results in my posts. Overall, I was impressed—and glad that I no longer have to wade through student essays completed outside of class.
I stopped teaching eleven years ago, before AI was available. Of course, the Internet was, and I did have students who cut and paste from sources online. Usually, I could tell; I would do a search using a “student” passage that just sounded a bit too good, and often whole paragraphs would come up that the student lazily cut and pasted into an assignment as their own work. Those were easy papers to grade. F!
Today’s AI programs make this more difficult. If I were teaching today, I’d assign fewer essays outside of class, and I’d probably bow to reality and allow students to use AI to help clarify their arguments.
The challenge remains: In this new world of AI, how do you evaluate student performance in a humanities course where research and writing skills are important, along with some command of the facts and an ability to think critically about them?
I’d likely employ a mix of the old and new. Standard exams—the usual multiple choice, short answer, written essay, all completed in the classroom—still have a role. But I’d incorporate AI too, especially for class discussion.
Consider, for example, debating the merits (and demerits) of the military-industrial complex. AI can easily write short essays both in favor and against (or even an essay that examines the pros and cons of the MIC). Those essays could then be used in class to tease out the complexities of the MIC, and how evidence can be used (manipulated?) to tell vastly different stories.
Another example: Should atomic bombs have been used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Again, AI can easily write essays in favor, or against, or “neutral” (pros and cons again). Those short essays could then form the basis for class discussion and further debate.
In a way, AI is a selective manifestation of evidence that is already out there. And there’s the rub. Who’s doing the selecting? Who’s writing the algorithms? Which evidence is being favored and which is being suppressed or disregarded?
AI, as I understand it, uses algorithms that favor certain kinds of evidence over other kinds. Generally speaking, AI favors “official” sources, e.g. government documents, mainstream media reporting, scholarly think tanks with credentials, and so on.
Alternatively, it’s possible AI could gather information from less than reputable sources. Again, what algorithms are being used? What are the agendas of those behind the AI in question?
To students, AI is something of a black box. It spits out answers without a lot of sourcing (unless you specifically ask for it). Students in a hurry may not care—they just want answers. But as Tom Cruise demands In A Few Good Men: “I want the truth.” What happens when AI Colonel Jessup decides, “You can’t handle the truth” and feeds us convenient half-truths and propaganda. Will students even care? Will they have the skills to recognize they’re being misled? Or that they’re not getting the full story?
That’s what I worry about. Students who simply accept what AI has to say. Not that they learned nothing—but that they learned exactly what they were programmed to learn. Strangely, in this scenario, the students themselves are reduced to automatons. And I don’t think most students want to be unthinking robots for the Man.
Or do they?
Postscript: Over at his new Substack site, Mike Neiberg is tackling AI and the humanities. Check it out at michaelneiberg.substack.com.
Bracing Views 
[From my entry on the Substack version.]
“In a way, AI is a selective manifestation of evidence that is already out there. And there’s the rub. Who’s doing the selecting? Who’s writing the algorithms? Which evidence is being favored and which is being suppressed or disregarded?”
For me those are the key questions. Being the techno-Luddite, the skeptic, the contrarian that I am, in this (unfolding) era of AI* I have new-found appreciation for the “gumshoe” historian and journalist who uses his/her suspicions, skills, hunches, wits, initiatives, sixth an seventh sense to get THE source material, which if I’m reading the above paragraph correctly, AI doesn’t get into, much. So I’m worried, with the seduction of quick and easy analyses available, are we being sold a story largely within status quo boundaries, when truth may well lie beyond?
*I still like to quip that “artificial intelligence” refers to the Republican campaign platform (habitually replete with reference to “tax reform” that is anything but).
LikeLike
Good thoughts of yours on how you would handle AI.
I am grateful to my parents for their careful use of language and credit that, far more than anything I learned in school, to my ability to speak and write clearly.
When I talk to people, I am struck by a range of speaking ability by age. The younger people are, the less they are able to express themselves clearly. Teens through twenty somethings are hobbled by “you know”, “I mean”, “I’m like” and the casual use of profanity all of which are road- blocks that hobble discourse. It’s to the point where I feel sorry for them as they stumble through conventions of speech that are meaningless in between sharing of videos on smartphones. Since the speed of delivery is very rapid with young people, I suspect the useless stuff is a way of allowing the brain to keep up with the speed of speaking.
Another thing that is lacking in the young is pausing to think while speaking. AI doesn’t need to pause, people do. There is a degree of dominance in speaking that I notice as well. A pause to think leaves an opening for another to jump in talking and that won’t do! Sit in a fast food place and listen to a group of young people conversing. The sound level rises as each seeks to keep the attention of the others with no regard for other people in the place. The local McDonald’s near the high school shuts its doors during the school lunch hour.
Young people grow up, but what they do is creeping up to older ages. Not being able to express oneself clearly is a terrible impediment in life and I think is related to people going into a rage with others.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haven’t been a teacher for more than a decade so haven’t had to confront new classroom realities. However, rather than bow to the new reality (cheating as it’s always been understood), I would take a very hard position. Students simply don’t learn well if the work is handed over to some bot.
The slippery slope you are on, accepting AI output as a source to be considered and evaluated, is caving to reality. It’s understandable but still a disservice to students. If they won’t do the work of learning with integrity, that’s on them. Enabling and excusing them is on you. Both lead to empty credentialing.
Lots of offers to write my blog for me appear over time. They would just be in the way of my own thinking and analysis even if they could somehow ape my style. Same is true of predictive text in word processors that make typing so much harder as the infernal algorithm attempts pathetically to anticipate my next word. Wish I could turn them off, but that’s another reality I can’t defy. It’s being jammed down my throat.
LikeLike
Hi Brutus: Yes, I hate those automatic writing suggestions. Sometimes, you can turn them off. For example, in gmail, go to settings, then scroll down to turn “writing suggestions” on or off.
Facebook even recommends how to wish your friends “happy birthday.” Complete with emojis. Very annoying.
LikeLike