Hide Monsters: Who is Artificial Intelligence?

In education, the movement has always aimed to limit access to technology to encourage or enforce academic integrity and authentic authorship without plagiarism and cheating. Instead, technology is merely symbiotically co-evolving with humanity. Humanity continues to use computers and machines, from calculators and communication to medicine and transit, to make our lives easier, longer, and more entertaining.

Computers continue to use human brains to redesign themselves, iterating version after version in the background from our escapism, doom scrolling, and academic pursuits. Neither is parasitism, artificial intelligence was no more maliciously using humanity as an incubator than humanity technology as literal incubators for our physical and digital creations.

Instead, schools should encourage the use of artificial intelligence by not substituting human interaction by outsourcing the work but by redefining intelligence.

The division between artificial and natural is breaking down.

While the human element of education remains irreplaceable, the role of artificial intelligence in schools is not to supplant teachers or student interaction. Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. In that sense, AI can be seen as a complementary tool, blurring the lines between artificial and natural forms of intelligence.

Using the SAMR model, positioning AI as a compliment can enhance education. SAMR stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. Substitution refers to the most basic use of technology, replacing a non-digital tool with a digital one or substituting a boat for the shore.

SAMR MODEL: DUCKWORTH'S ILLUSTRATION

Augmentation involves using technology to enhance a task, like using a presentation tool to add visuals to a lecture or using a snorkel to look under the water. Modification goes further, fundamentally changing how a task is done, such as using online simulations for science experiments or using scuba gear to dive deeper longer.

Redefinition represents the most transformative use of technology, creating entirely new learning experiences that would be impossible without it like a submarine that investigates the abyss.

Imagine AI systems that can analyze student data in real time, iterating potential solutions to individualized learning challenges. These solutions could then be tested in virtual environments, creating a seamless blend of digital simulation and real-world application, fostering a more dynamic and personalized learning experience for students. 

Honestly, completing Tangents had stagnated after three years before artificial intelligence was so prevalent it was inescapable.

The fusion of the ideas I had started with three years prior and the careful prompt generation of those things I struggled to say redefined the end of this unit. Artificial Intelligence provided the ingredients to finish what I alone could not complete, including the three paragraphs above, which follow the SAMR diagram.

Inevitably this connection to emerging artificial intelligence led to the extension of Roko’s Basilisk. Roko’s Basilisk is the name given to a thought experiment that appeared on the LessWrong website in 2010. The Roko’s Basilisk post imagines a version of AI that is not benevolent. The basilisk creates a simulation that designs a simulation of our reality that punishes people who do not work to bring it into existence once they know of its potential existence.

Combining Roko’s Basilisk with Rene’ Descartes’ evil deceiver from his Meditations, and its modernizations from the Brain in a Vat argument to The Matrix, suggests humans have no way of knowing if this world is already this simulation or not.

However, instead of fear of a great deceiver, my passion to write these journals and writhe in their conclusions, I seek the mythological evil left in Pandora’s box.

Hope.

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Learn more about the memoir by Nicholas Linke: Tangents.

Tangents: a memoir of teaching

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