Today I asked my students to respond to two questions. 1. How often do you use an AI chatbot? 1=never, 10=every day 2. What are your feelings about the future of AI? 1=apocalyptically dystopian, like I foresee dying at the hands of a murder robot, 10=I think AI will improve our lives immensely.
The kids are alright?
Or at least they seem quite aware of the ways in which AI might make their lives not alright.
Surprising to me. Their approximate ages?
18-20
I guess they don't know different. Always a hard lesson for us old people
I asked the first question to my class last night. The results were even more tilted toward “never.” I have also read that students are afraid to admit that they even have the app installed lest they be accused of cheating. I think my kids genuinely don’t use it but they may be playing me.
you're telling me the kids are alright by & large?
My 14yo (Freshman) came home today and said he watched the kid in front of him in Honors World History type their questions into ChatGPT instead of getting the answers from the lecture slides, as intended. My kid thought this was a lot of extra work just for fill-in-the-blank words.
But my kid would be right at home in your sample population. He thinks AI is pointless for school work, and he wants to be an artist, so it's a direct threat to his future livelihood.
Lucky guy
I haven't surveyed, but one of my high schoolers says her peers use GenAI every day to do their homework. It's particularly easy for math because they just photograph the problem and get the answer. My daughter even showed me how to do it with Snapchat's internal AI. It worked remarkably well.
I do wonder what happens on test day.
My now-college freshman failed AP Calc in HS. He told me "I did the math: you can pass the class just taking the tests, wo doing the homework. The error in my calculation is that you cannot pass the tests wo doing the homework." So, hopefully they learn the same lesson sooner rather than later.
Disaster, I assume. That was the primary point I made to my 14yo.
Yes -- I've seen and increasing number of students with near perfect homework scores and absolutely dismal exams in intro calculus and stats classes in the last year or so. Pre AI, good homework scores were a pretty reliable predictor B-ish or better exams, but not so much now.
Most worrisome, IMHO, was how easy it was. It saves a lot of time for those who just want to be done with homework.
What number is "it will massively contribute to the climate crisis but won't itself be successful enough to develop sentience and take over the world, that's just silly"?
appears you have some education and empowerment/ responsibility to instill
I was surprised by how negative so many of them were about it, and they offered very well-thought-out reasons for why they were concerned about the impact AI might have on them as individuals and society more broadly.
Promising
I surveyed my HS juniors and seniors with similar results.
My 23-yr-old daughter would agree.
I surveyed my class on how often they watch porn or masturbate and got the same results. Most said never or rarely. The kids are alright.
Somewhat encouraging thanks for sharing!
This gives me hope. The kids get it. I wish tech leaders could come to grips with it. Only good use I've seen for AI lately is allowing CETI to speak whale language, but humans will probably do something diabolical with that new power.
hmmm
📌
Marketing departments funded by VCs are leading the "AI is the next big thing" narrative.
Marketing departments funded by VCs are leading the "AI is the next big thing" narrative.
Out of curiosity where is this? Cause my students are exactly the opposite. They use it for everything.
Willamette University in Oregon.
Don’t get me wrong, this certainly gives me hope but I teach mostly high school sophomores in Atlanta and it’s completely different. I try everything I can to change their minds so hopefully they stop as they age
The kids can be alright.
And...? I'm a 1 on both questions.
Interesting! How old are these students?
traditionally aged, first and second-year undergraduates
Oops! I should've checked your bio; this feels even more interesting at the college level. I wonder how common these feelings are at other universities.