Artificial Insidiousness (An Introduction)
"Modern Man is the victim of the very instruments he values most. Every gain in power, every mastery of natural forces, every scientific addition to knowledge, has proved potentially dangerous, because it has not been accompanied by equal gains in self-understanding and self-discipline." —Lewis Mumford, 1967
“People will get dumber as A.I. gets smarter. . . . I worry that as the models get better and better, the users can have less and less of their own discriminating thought process.”—Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO
The drudgery of a recent staff meeting, with the familiar invocations to modernize our methodologies, reminded me how summer cannot get here. fast. enough.
An administrator devoted five minutes to how we now have a choice of at least three (!!) Artificial Intelligence options (including an updated ChatGBT) to aid (ease? take over?) our instruction.
The mercifully brief digression mainly touted the technological capability of how to quickly compose entire emails to parents and guardians about any number of informative concerns.
Special features allegedly offer a much friendly tone and more clarity than we ever could.
Perhaps that could include letters to union leadership.
As an aging parent and veteran teacher, is this really the future we want to embrace, smiles intact?
Are we gradually trying to close some achievable loop between AI generated assignments, assessments and letters home via the latest alluring algorithm?
Transfer my call to a human.
We get it.
Ever since we began booting up computers and clicking onto the internet, we’ve all been using AI (Googling, web mapping, spellcheck, etc.) to varying degrees.
In 2025, the fabulously fomenting frontier keeps exploding into all forms of education. The spectacle loop sees us standing with protective glasses at some awe-struck Trinity test site, seemingly oblivious to any unintended consequences, however hidden, however long-term.
Last week, my enterprising sixteen-year-old conducted an unsolicited independent AI survey of Know the Teacher Left Behind.
SON (interrupting overdue Substack entry)
Dad, wanna to see what some AI says about your writing?
DAD
Ah, maybe for a moment.
SON
It looks like it likes your work.
DAD
Has the algorithm discovered humor?
My well-meaning progeny wanted to keep reading an extended review he helped prompt.
It felt mildly amusing and disconcerting.
While full of laudatory observations, the latest software revealed trouble with my mix of educational commentary, drama excerpts — and especially poetry. As if, for now, such critical and creative diversity did not quite fully compute.
As if poetry temporarily perplexed the machine.
We chuckled a bit, but my son seemed surprised I wasn’t more uplifted by the favorable comments, however synthetic the pronouncements.
We both soon had much more fun playing catch before cooking on an open fire. . . .
In the months ahead, I hope to explore alternatives to this ongoing march of mechanization, as I do the three ‘r’s most teachers do over the summer; reflect, rejuvenate and readjust to ever-changing administrative-centered demands against a few teacher and student-centered desires (along with oft-changing administrations).
As my public school teaching career starts to wind down, I remain as committed as ever to fostering critical and imaginative thinking — crucial skills typically beyond the realm of high-stakes standardized testing and the corresponding, rapidly developing AI.
Even in the world of stage entertainment, we live in strange times, where the best musical in 2025 may be a Broadway play about obsolete robots in love (Maybe Happy Ending).
I confess to slowly working on a four-person script with robot teacher — and android student.
Tentative title: Too Sure, With Love.
Deserted student study lounge, Armstrong Hall, MSU, last day of school, May 9, 2025. Lifeless until at least early September.
Oh, dunno. Some of those instruments, used carefully, are pretty awesome.