Schools and colleges are open for business – it’s the fall semester – but the statistics are depressing. Nationally, high school seniors have scored the worst on reading results since 1992. The data, from the respected National Assessment of Education Progress, showed that a third of 12th-graders who were tested last year, did not meet basic reading skills. Forbes magazine recently reported on the “dark side of AI: tracking the decline of human cognitive skills” and the National Endowment for the Arts noted that federal data showed a slump in reading for pleasure. So, is any or all of this attributable to the invasion of AI into our kids’ classrooms?
ChatGPT was initially pitched as a useful technological “tool”, yet more educational analysts are expressing concerns that tests show we are losing fundamental critical thinking skills in the process. As Sarah O’Connor commented in a Financial Times opinion piece, “without solid skills of your own, it is only a few short steps from being supported by the machine, to finding yourself dependent on it, or subject to it.”
MIT’s recent media study published unsettling results on cognitive performance using ChatGPT and the only people who seem unconcerned are Sam Altman and other tech leaders. CF has put together a panel of AI observers, including a neuroscientist, a professor of humanities and a student to discuss some of the challenges and concerns associated with generative AI and learning. Until we know more about the cognitive effects of technology like ChatGPT, should we be inserting it into the classroom? And if, as recent studies indicate, it homogenizes thinking and creativity, are we content to let our kids’ education go into experimental free fall?
