““Imagine if you had a voice assistant that could write code for you, and you said, ‘Hey, Alexa, build me a Web site to sell shoes,’ ” Sanjay Sarma, a professor of mechanical engineering at M.I.T., told me on the phone. “That’s already happening. It’s called ‘low-code.’ ” There has been much hand-wringing about ChatGPT and its ability to replicate some composition tasks. But ChatGPT can no more conceive “Mrs. Dalloway” than it can guide and people-manage an organization. Instead, A.I. can gather and order information, design experiments and processes, produce descriptive writing and mediocre craftwork, and compose basic code, and those are the careers likeliest to go into slow eclipse. “I think the future belongs to the humanities,” Sarma said.”
“Different opinions reflect different values, different attitudes towards assessment, and different understandings of how learning happens. I’ll take a stab at unpacking this, and (as is my wont) I will not be shy about sharing my opinions along the way. I will present this as a discussion with imaginary colleagues, whose contributions are in bold type. “
“We have designed our application to afford the greatest possible opportunity and flexibility for students to represent themselves fully and showcase their academic talents, interests and goals.”
“Our research shows standardized tests help us better assess the academic preparedness of all applicants.”
“Joseph Conrad is remembered as a Polish writer who he went on to become one of the great masters of the English language. But the author of Heart of Darkness was actually born in a small village near Kyiv, and Ukraine was his home throughout his early years.”
“Galaxy: In astronomy, that long, white, luminous track which seems to encompass the heavens like a swath, scarf or girdle, and which is easily perceived in a clear night, especially when the moon does not appear. The Greeks call it Galaxy of Milk on account of its colour and appearance; the Latins, for the same reasons, call it via lactea; and we, the milky way.”
“#1. Everything is your fault. It sucks and it’s not fair, but it’s the truest thing about leadership. Try to deny this and you’ll erode any respect or trust you may have with internal and external stakeholders.”
“Our results show that ChatGPT substantially raises average productivity: time taken decreases by 0.8 SDs and output quality rises by 0.4 SDs. Inequality between workers decreases, as ChatGPT compresses the productivity distribution by benefiting low-ability workers more. ChatGPT mostly substitutes for worker effort rather than complementing worker skills, and restructures tasks towards idea-generation and editing and away from rough-drafting.”
“Across all three comparisons conducted, the AI-generated messages were “consistently persuasive to human readers.” Though the effect sizes were relatively small, falling within a range of a few points on a scale of zero to 100, such small moves extrapolated across a polarizing topic and a voting-population scale could prove significant.”
“There are business models that might bring these products into closer alignment with users. I’d feel better, for instance, about an A.I. helper I paid a monthly fee to use rather than one that appeared to be free, but sold my data and manipulated my behavior. “
“Bing gave ChatGPT 70%. ChatGPT gave Bing an A”
“What did lead to better outcomes was having a “bursty” communication style, where ideas were communicated and responded to quickly. By contrast, in environments where communication and feedback were delayed or dispersed across multiple threads, teams suffered, and the quality of their work suffered.”
Copyright
Every week I send out articles I encounter from around the web. Subject matter ranges from hard knowledge about teaching to research about creativity and cognitive science to stories from other industries that, by analogy, inform what we do as educators. This breadth helps us see our work in new ways.
Readers include teachers, school leaders, university overseers, conference organizers, think tank workers, startup founders, nonprofit leaders, and people who are simply interested in what’s happening in education. They say it helps them keep tabs on what matters most in the conversation surrounding schools, teaching, learning, and more.
– Peter Nilsson