"Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art" by Ted Chiang

With Fall term drawing near, and the impending students questions of "Why do I have to learn this if A.I. can do it for me?" and similar questions has me preparing my quiver of responses.  In The New Yorker, Ted Chiang's August 31st article "Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art" has some good criticism of A.I. Here are a few quotes and frames from the article I am drawn to. 

• "Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art."
  
  In short, are you really creating something of worth or value with A.I.?
  
  
• "Effort during the writing process doesn’t guarantee the end product is worth reading, but worthwhile work cannot be made without it. The type of attention you pay when reading a personal e-mail is different from the type you pay when reading a business report, but in both cases it is only warranted when the writer put some thought into it."
  
  So human 'effort' is a necessary but not sufficient condition an end product is worth reading/consuming. 
  
  
• "Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way."
  
  There are quite a few analogies like this, and the imagery here makes using A.I. seem nonsensical. 
  
  
• "Some individuals have defended large language models by saying that most of what human beings say or write isn’t particularly original. That is true, but it’s also irrelevant. When someone says “I’m sorry” to you, it doesn’t matter that other people have said sorry in the past; it doesn’t matter that “I’m sorry” is a string of text that is statistically unremarkable."
  
  This seems intuitive, that it isn't the specific words we say that are important, our use of them in relation to who we are and what we intend with them is what is important. You could imagine a science fiction short story where the protagonist loses their ability to speak their native language due to an alien virus, and instead speaks nonsense. While their words are not understandable, their phrasing, body language, and intention could still be clear.
  
  For students this argument could be phrased as "The goal isn't to get the right answer, it is for you to develop the skills and capacity to arrive at the correct answer."

I'm headed into the office tomorrow and I'm hoping to set aside a big part of the day to reading some articles I've saved from the summer and were sent to me to prepare for Fall term. If you have something you think I should read, please send it my way. 

Mid-Summer catch-up: Accounting and presenting on BTC

 Lots of personal and professional things swirling in my world, and I thought I'd reflect on a few of them here. 

• I am taking an accounting class through my institution. It is online and I just finished my first quiz with a 98%. Being a student I am noticing a few things;
• I really appreciate the well-defined nature of the course. Reading the textbook, completing a few assignments, struggling through some ideas, and taking a quiz every two weeks. It feels very doable and I don't feel overwhelmed. I wonder about this in my own courses, where I have quite a few components and parts, and wonder if their utility in helping students understand math is discounted by student confusion about what to do and when. 
• Being an educator it feels that I am trading my cognitive, social, and mathematical knowledge for money. That's the job, right? In accounting though it seems clear that you are trading a specific skill you have developed, like a craftsperson or an artisan. for money I know this might seem obvious, but it is refreshing to see a profession that doesn't have to consume your entire being.
• I am taking the class because I am going to be the Treasurer for my kid's PTA next year. It has been helpful to use this specific example to put a lot of the accounting ideas in context. How am I going to record purchases for a fundraiser? What reports will I need to generate? 
• While I could read a book about accounting, I am taking a class for a few reasons;
• With my state employee benefits the tuition is only $5, along with paying for books. 
• It gives me a  way to be accountable, and pushes me to sit down and do the work. 
• I get to be a student again, something I loved. 
• I also get to experience what students experience at my institution, and that is really helpful as an educator. 
• Today I am heading to Kennewick Washington to present at the BEdA Biennial Conference on Building Thinking Classrooms. This is the first time I have been invited to speak at a conference and am looking forward to hearing how others outside the math community will react to BTC.

That's it. I still have quite a few summer plans, work I'd like to complete ahead of the next academic year. I'll be sure to share some of those ideas here as they happen.