Another article on artificial intelligence and the revolution that it will necessarily bring about in education (“AI is preparing its place at school”, In The duty of March 14). Another article which uses as a source actors from private companies, sometimes technopedagogues, who really have every interest in getting their hands on the school system.
This time, we’re talking about the magic of AI capable of developing a lesson plan. Wow, my arms are drooping! A bit as if I could buy a textbook from a recognized educational publishing house with lesson plans, exercises and assessments. But with AI, my lesson plan will of course be 1000 times better: I don’t know what sources it relies on, what copyright it violates and if even what it writes will be true (and to what extent). degree). It’s up to me to reread everything, to find the sources, to pay the copyright, to reframe the “hallucinations” of the AI (artificial intelligence does not make mistakes, it “hallucinates”). What a lot of time saved, indeed. Wow!
And then, above all, it is the following injunction that bothers me: “And since we will not put the genie back in the bottle […] » That’s it, everything is said: AI is coming, we can’t think, we can’t wait, we can’t escape it. I have to use AI in my classroom, even though I don’t feel any need for it.
AI is the conversational robot that claims to support my students’ learning 24 hours a day; which can detect learning disabilities from the first result of an evaluation (which one?) or based on algorithms which predict the degree of success of a student even before the start of classes (how?).
AI is the program that does the homework for the students (how?), then provides me with a program to detect when the students have used a program to do their homework for them (really?).
AI is another way of reducing education to its simple dimension of graduation: how can I pass the course? AI doesn’t help educate or socialize students (hell, no!). AI is another way of forcing students to spend more time glued to screens, when everyone knows that this is harmful to them.
AI also means confusing the work of professional teachers (four years of baccalaureate!) with that of education technicians.
Yes, we can put the genie back in the bottle. The proof: we know that educational success requires smaller classes, pleasant physical spaces, healthy and abundant food, easily accessible specialized human resources, a solid university education, a student salary, etc. However, knowing this, our governments are quick to put all these genius solutions back into the bottle of competitive capitalism.
So yes, we can put the genie back in the bottle.