AI, EI, and Future Ponderings
“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
Until recently, I didn’t have access to a way to cheat when writing my weekly Bulletin letter to our community. I mean, one year, I figured out I could invite “guest columnists” a.k.a. our teachers, to write in my stead some pedagogical musings. But they got wise and realized they were already doing this in their own weekly Bulletin entries! And that was okay, because really I love writing and I love you! So, that equals, I love writing to you.
Then I learned about AI and how it can write poetry and blog entries and everything and I got insecure, feeling sure that AI would do a much better job than me, especially given that I usually can’t sit down to write my piece until past the deadline and I am thus rushed, and sometimes a little sub-par in my delivery.
However, ultimately instead of checking out how I might use AI to augment my Bulletin morsels, I started riffing… Artificial Intelligence… Emotional Intelligence. Ah ha! The Center School gets a lot of good press for our work on teaching/prioritizing Emotional Intelligence (now called “EQ”) alongside Math, Writing, and Health. It is a tenet of our philosophy. So, as the world throws itself into the vortex of AI, the Center School is putting most of its eggs into the EI/EQ basket.
Does this mean that our students won’t be interested in working with AI or at the forefront of future technological advances? No way. However, I do believe that the group of CEO’s, professors, and scientists who sent out their online, open letter today to the whole world via every major news outlet, are imploring us to have an acute awareness of the potential dangers that such technology will produce. I picture Center School alumni, and students coming out of other progressive institutions, marching into the world to be the mitigators, the questioners, the confident critics. And also, to use and design tools to MAKE THE WORLD better, more equitable, dare I say more meaning-full.
Every day here at school, we are deep into process. We much prefer a hand scratched comic or a passionate list to a well written essay by a robot. Of course, we have the privilege of being just at the starting point for children in their journey to the well-written, well researched, relevant essay. They aren’t under pressure to crank out 2000 words because a professor ordered them to (yet). By the time our kids get to high school, we hope they will be ready for that exercise, if that’s their educational path. We also celebrate those who choose other paths– go to trade school, for cosmetology for instance (we have 2 recent graduates doing wonderfully with makeup and hair styling!). I’m not sure which of our alumni are or will be in the AI biz, but I definitely hope if they’re reading this, they can tell by the meandering words that it isn’t one of “theirs.” I also hope they will drop us a line and tell us how they’re faring and how what they learned here at the Center School has influenced their work! And that they’ll remember: the equation must balance! AI needs EI to make meaning and to keep this planet spinning.
Image via www.vpnsrus.com