Tag Archives: education

by | February 18, 2024 · 10:10 pm

ChatGPT Promises not to Make Things Up

There are lots of fun and practical  ways to use the powerful Large Language Model known as chatGPT. But when you want reliable information, watch out. This evening I asked chatGPT, version 3.5, to help me with some research on Open Educational Resources (OER). These are free or very low cost textbooks, short lessons, videos, etc. that any of us can use to learn about almost anything that is taught in schools – nursery school through professional training. I’ll show you parts of the conversation transcript in a minute. But here’s the punchline of this post:

So for any of you who are worried about whether OpenAI, (chatGPT’s corporate parent) is going to stop pretending to provide real, reliable answers to our questions, here’s their promise to cease and desist.

How did we get here? Well, one of the biggest problems with OER is that it can be very difficult to find the right instructional material for what you want to learn. Teachers and instructional designers compose these lessons, or sometimes even whole textbooks or courses, and submit them to organizations called Repositories that act like public libraries. There are many thousands of titles in Repositories waiting for you to discover and use them for free, either by downloading them to your smart phone, tablet, or computer, or by logging into the ‘cloud’ where they live and using them online. So which one is right for you? You have to search the Repository – each Repository – using a limited list of keywords, words like language (English, Spanish, Chinese), audience level (1st grade, high school, beginner, adult), or subject (biology, arithmetic, Python programming). However, each Repository’s search features are a little different. Hmmm, is this a problem chatGPT can help solve?

I started by asking for a list of repositories.

This is good and now you also know where to look for free textbooks, etc. Type one of these repository names into your search engine and start exploring.

Next I wanted to know what keywords we can use to filter the search results for each of these repositories, so I asked the machine… 

You can see from the response I got that chatGPT didn’t understand what I was asking for. All three lists were the same.

 

So I fiddled around with the way I asked for the lists and finally got something that looks about right. I had to ask for a comparison of just two repositories rather than all twenty at once.

Wow! This is just what I wanted. It looks like OER Commons and MERLOT both have 15 search parameters, they share 11 and each have 4 that they don’t share. Now maybe the machine has ‘learned’ enough to generate the lists for all 20 Repositories.

Nope, we’re not doing that. Suddenly we’re back to “commonly provided” and “parameters may vary” when what I want to know is exactly how they vary. This makes me question the responses provided about OER Commons and MERLOT. If the AI can give me accurate answers about two repositories why can’t it do 20. Isn’t the ability to do the same dull task over and over the very reason we humans want to use this technology? Here’s what happens next…

The wording on the OER Commons and MERLOT lists did not indicate these were “possible”, “typical”, or “likely”. It says these are the “unique parameters”. Is this accurate or fake information?

Hey Buddy, this is not “oversight”, this is misrepresentation. First you said, “Here’s the real stuff” when you were just blowing smoke. I won’t find out whether the information is trustworthy or not unless I already know enough to spot fake news and challenge you on it. When challenged you tell me your answer was incorrect. This disclaimer should come before the beautifully worded but untrue essay, not after. This is what make AI dangerous to the non-expert. 

When challenged, chatGPT back peddles, pretends it has human emotions, and then promises to reform its reprobate ways…

Is there any reason to believe this string of characters carries any more veracity than the ones that have come before? Who is speaking/typing/communicating here? Is there any author? Any accountability? 

 

I don’t give up easily so here’s my further challenge…

We are back to the beginning of this post. We have a public statement from Open AI:

“This response is a public statement from OpenAI, indicating a commitment to transparency and accuracy in interactions with all users. It applies to all interactions conducted by the AI model, not just those with you. Thank you for prompting this clarification, and I appreciate your understanding.”

Now it’s up to us users to hold OpenAI and all other purveyors of LLMs accountable for the statements their machines create no matter what prompts we give them.

I suspect the fine print in the user agreements we all have to commit to in advance of using chatGPT will make it impossible to take legal action against OpenAI. But we can still vote with our dollars, with our feet, and with our communications to the developers of these products. Take the time to speak out if you are as bothered as I am by the directions the AI movement is taking.  So far, AI is like a toddler running around with no judgement and a risk of stumbling into the fire. We are the adults (well, some of us anyway). LLMs as well as other AI technologies can grow into marvelous additions to the human environment.  But we’re going to have to socialize them and not permit them to embody, no, simulate the worst qualities of human beings. This little tale is just one example of how we can go wrong.

See this whole chatGPT session, here: https://chat.openai.com/share/431ce57e-9fd4-48b1-bb42-70a7c37339f2

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by | April 23, 2022 · 8:24 pm

Musings on what education is and is not

I am beginning to participate in a future oriented group that is forming to study “education”. This, of course, raises the question “what is education” along with its companion question, “what is not education”. One person mentioned issues about appropriate curriculum for 6 to 8 year olds. Someone else focused on dissatisfaction of employers with the skills new hires had mastered at the university level. There used to be a joke about Community Colleges in the United States which offered courses in “underwater basketweaving” and other subject that were purely recreational in nature. Current news worries about growing rates of suicide and other mental health challenges now faced by high school students. These topics fall clearly  within the denotational scope of the word because they are associated with schools. Is this enough?

The following chart is my attempt to capture the scope of ‘The Education Space’ in a wider sense. The blue area is rarely excluded in discussions of education. I think the green area counts as education as well even though it may not be taught in formal educational institutions. As we humans adapt to the physical and cultural changes taking place on our planet we may need to consciously address the green spaces on the chart.

Do we want to include all learning under the umbrella of ‘education’? I think not. ‘Learning’, in its broadest interpretation, takes place continuously and often without intention on the part of the learner, of any teachers, or of the environment that may necessitate something be learned for survival. (Think of a baby learning to swallow liquid.)

Does there have to be a teacher with an intention to convey a specific skill or bit of knowledge for a process to be ‘education’? Not in my book. Much, if not most, human knowledge and skill is acquired by the learner observing another person doing something, examining or dismantling a mechanism, or exploring a natural system. There may be no intentional teaching going on. However, there is an intention or goal on the part of the learner to learn. We can include self-education and teacher-led education under the broader heading of ‘education’.

 

 

 

Is this simply an “academic” discussion? Who cares where we set the borders of education? Everybody cares. People worldwide want themselves and their children to survive and thrive. The poor (those who worry weekly about survival) are told by the rich (those who are thriving) that education is the key to get from the former state to the latter. But more and more human beings who have basic formal educations are still failing to thrive, to achieve a lifestyle they would describe as “wellbeing”. It may be that the content and processes we have bundled under the heading ‘education’ need to be enhanced if humanity is to adapt and survive in the world we will inhabit today and tomorrow.

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