The disaster is here. In a small 181-page book that looks like an unbridled reactionary manifesto, two CEGEP philosophy professors rage against the increasingly common use of digital technologies at school. Remember that in their own time, many priests were against the translation of the Bible from Latin into languages that ordinary mortals could read by themselves…
In a very relevant caricature of 1960 Quebec, Les Cyniques, a group whose caustic humor is surprisingly relevant in 2023 and whose best capsules can be listened to or watched completely freely — oh irony! — on YouTube, already made fun of this kind of position at the time. “Reading is bad: it gives you ideas,” they said ironically 50 years before the birth of the iPhone.
In what also looks like a caricature, in spite of itself, however, of the eternally scrogneugneu philosophy teacher, Éric Martin and Sébastien Mussi sign at Écosociété Welcome to the machine. Teaching in the digital age. They talk about the end of teachers, cybernetic opportunism and, in short, the beginning of the end of human intelligence.
It’s big. We flirt dangerously with conspiracy. We especially have the impression of being described the scenario of a bad movie.
Ideology
Depicted with slightly finer brushstrokes, the criticism would have hit the mark more. The internet is full of falsehoods. The latest innovations—ChatGPT and future rivals from Google, Baidu, and more—raise the risk of cheating and plagiarism to a new level. The flood of videos on Instagram and TikTok discourages mental exertion lasting longer than a few seconds.
All of this is verifiable. Worse still: all these applications are the property of a very limited number of private — and foreign — companies that don’t give a damn about their impact on Quebec schools.
However, these same applications — or their equivalent open-source, which does exist — if used well, can also have a beneficial effect on education and culture. ChatGPT and Wikipedia before it are sites rich in teaching potential. YouTube and Vimeo are used by the world’s top universities to deliver high-level intellectual content.
But trying too hard to consider only one side of the coin, the two CEGEP teachers turn into a bad joke what should be a constructive awareness of the high risks of digital slippage.
A philosophy which presents only one side of things has a name: it is an ideology.
What is technology?
If we go back to the very essence of the term, everything that is used in schools to transmit knowledge is technology. The book is a technology. Chalk and slate are technology. These are tools that we collectively learn to master. This also applies to digital: the Internet is a huge communication tool. Tablets and personal computers as well.
The motorist who goes to have his car serviced at the garage will never hold a screwdriver or a freight elevator responsible for a botched or badly done repair. Rather, it risks tarnishing the reputation of the mechanic, the garage, or even the manufacturer of his vehicle.
The emergence of digital technologies in the education system has been taking place for at least 40 years. Pointing the finger at them for all the negative they bring these days to teaching is complaining about a brand new set of screwdrivers, when the problem may be how the mechanic uses them to do his job.
However, if the Quebec school, as the authors conclude, is condemned by the very existence of the Internet to be only a “machine for forming ‘human capital'” rather than citizens or free thinkers, it’s certainly not because it lacks the tools to correct the situation.
Probably his library lacks new books. No doubt there is a lack of support adapted to students who are struggling to keep up. But everywhere in Quebec there are schools at all levels of education that have embraced digital technology in such a way that their students become better people. And who use these new tools to fill the limited access to other means of education.
The question that is not asked in Welcome to the machine, and what really hurts is this: are there mechanics who repair cars without tools? No ? And the teachers, will they do their job better with or without tools?
As an artificial intelligence expert said recently about ChatGPT: it’s not like we’re going to put the toothpaste back in the tube…
This is a book worth reading.