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Harnessing the Power of AI for Living and Learning

Harnessing the Power of AI for Living and Learning

By Hunt Lyman
Hunt Lyman

In the last issue Country ZEST, I introduced AI technology such as ChatGPT and Google Bard and promised to outline how these technologies may affect us. While it’s impossible to predict all the ways AI will shape our lives, I can anticipate some changes likely to happen soon:

■ Changes in internet searches: AI poses a serious threat to Google’s dominance in online searches, offering a more individualized approach. Users can prompt AI chatbots to provide specific information instead of relying on generic search results.

■ Changes in personal organization: AI will soon help most people with tasks such as making reservations, updating calendars, and planning vacations, making personal assistants accessible to everyone with a phone or computer.

■ Changes to social media: AI systems can generate large amounts of human-sounding writing, realistic images, and videos quickly. The ability to create “deep fakes” makes it harder to separate fact from fantasy, especially on uncurated sites.

■ Changes in intimate relationships: AI chatbots, programmed to be ideal companions, may appeal to many people, especially the lonely and alienated. Forming strong emotional attachments to AI bots becomes increasingly conceivable as relationships become more disembodied online.

Additionally, AI will dramatically change how many people perform their jobs. I used AI in my classes frequently last spring, and here are a few examples from one week:

■ ChatGPT improved our alphabet for my fourth graders, creating a 25-letter version and translating a standard English passage (see box).

■ It generated a personalized, humorous 4th-grade vocabulary test using the names of my students and incorporating “dad jokes”

■ For Grandparents Day, ChatGPT suggested Bingo cards designed to elicit shared interests and created them.

■ I used ChatGPT to demonstrate each stage of the writing process for a formal expository essay, giving students a holistic view of composition from brainstorming to proofreading.

■ ChatGPT can impersonate authors and characters, so I planned a unit for my students to interview both historical and fictional people.

■ I explored ChatGPT’s potential for individualized tutoring in student writing and standardized test preparation.

■ I also gathered tools to detect inappropriate AI usage by my students and adapted the process and format of other assignments to make AI less attractive.

Many politicians and technology leaders have called for limits on AI deployment to allow time for understanding and adaptation. AI leaders are essentially begging the government to regulate them, since no one can slow down unless they all do. However, given the pace of government regulation and the competitive marketplace, it’s unlikely that AI advancements will stall. AI is exciting and engaging, but also potentially dangerous. It’s crucial for us to learn about these technologies, use them to our advantage, and consider how to limit potential pitfalls and shortcomings. The revolution is coming, and participation will not be optional.

Hunt Lyman is a long-time educator and dean of academics at Hill School in Middleburg.

ASSIGNMENT: Suggest improvements to the alphabet, eliminating letters are unnecessary and adding some for simple sounds.Then, rewrite the following paragraph using this new alphabet: “The school’s goal is to help children grow strong and happy. In doing so we prize certain abilities: the abilities to think, to demonstrate essential academic skills, to be curious and resourceful, to communicate with oneself and with others, to trust, to be grateful, to wonder. And we prize certain qualities: honesty, humility, empathy, and compassion.”

THE OUTCOME: Ðe skool’s gwal iz tu help čildren gwow strong and hapy. In doing so wi priz serṭen abilities: ðe abilities tu þink, tu demonstreit esenshal akademic skilz, tu bi kyurious and rišorsful, tu komwnikat wið wunself and wið uðers, tu trust, tu bi greitful, tu wonder. And wi priz serṭen kwalities: honesty, humiliti, empaþi, and kompašn.

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