A Look Back Into The Past

Last night I was having a conversation with my good friend Larz who is in his mid sixties and is a tenth grade teacher. Larz teaches mathematics and science and he is very well versed in these topics. As a matter of fact Larz has been working on inventing a new type of calender for many years and we had an interesting interaction about the Norwegian, Greek and Latin linguistic roots that that make up the days of the week; Monday Thru Sunday (I don’t know any of this stuff, I hope I’m remembering what he told me correctly!). One of the main ideas that he was discussing with me was how a bulk of his students were obviously attempting to use AI to pass his class. He read a long excerpt from one of his student’s papers, whom he said was typically an “F” student. “You know Bobby,” he had said “I’m curious to see how this kid reacts when I ask him ‘So, what did you mean exactly when you used all of the key vocabulary words correctly in a well written, perfectly coherent and perfectly organized way that made perfect sense and completely answered the question with all of these highly specific details’?”.

I laughed after he finished his story, to myself and any adult with common sense and some life experience, it was easy to see through the ridiculous attempt of this child to pull one over on Larz. It’s also funny because you might have seen a little bit of yourself in that kid and realized that you would have done the same thing he tried to do, had you been given access to the same types of tools that he had at his disposal. Larz went on to talk about how when he was in school many years ago, calculators were actually quite expensive and uncommon and instead they used a tool known as “The Slide Rule” (pictured above). During his college days, calculators were discouraged and instead slide rules were considered the norm for solving mathematical equations.

This made me think about an example from my own life. As a Millennial (and I’m sure this is an experience you had as well if you’re around my age), you might recall teachers in elementary and middle school insisting that you learn how to calculate math problems in your own head, because “You won’t always be able to carry a calculator with you wherever you go”. Low and behold, a handful of years later and smartphones started to become a thing and what was one of the features that these new portable phones had? Why, a calculator of course! On a quick sidenote here, I still remember when I had an old Nokia flip phone in middle school and how my friend Chris had a Blackberry (RIP by the way) with those tiny ass keyboards that made the fingers of anyone other than an infant look fucking massive! I still think back and wonder sometimes how anyone was able to text on those small keyboards.

Is It Dependence Or Independence?

You’re probably thinking that I mean “convenience” when I say independence, but what I’m actually referring to is having the opportunity to lean on something that does the thinking for you, allowing you to use your cognitive abilities on specific tasks rather than every task. Now that we don’t have to think about how much we need to tip our waiter after eating at a restaraunt, we can think about something else that requires our attention or at least something that we care more about. By itself not really that big of a deal but think of the natural trend that humans have to simplify every process. “Work smarter, not harder”. And why wouldn’t you choose the path of least resistence? Time seems to be more valuable than it has ever been before or at least we tend to value it differently as we age and mature.

What happens when children start thinking like adults by taking shortcuts to longerm thinking, as if they needed to be as productive and aware as us? One might argue that it’s good practice for them to ignore basic information in favor of multitasking but you could also argue that by taking these mental shortcuts, they never truly learn how to think by and for themselves. So do these emerging tools in technology that give us independence from solving problems that we normally don’t want to do, give us freedom to think or by using them do we miss some basics along the way that make it harder to understand a topic with greater depth?

Think about it this way; if you don’t know how to spell, how can you write? If you don’t have grammar in your writing, how do you organize your thoughts into something that makes sense? Not understanding the foundations of how ideas, language and mathematics work would probably set us back significantly in the generations to come. So to me the question becomes; “How do we move forward in a way that does not prevent our children and ourselves from thinking critically and understanding life and information in a logical way?”. What good is independence if it leads back to being dependent again?

Inevitability Versus The Will To Change

Having advancements of technology is inevitable and we will never stop inventing methods to simplify our lives. However this raises the question “Okay then, so should we just accept this inevitability and not try to address the problems that come with these new tools?”. For better or wosre the future is here and it is always evolving and changing the way we live our lives. So how do we integrate and properly make use of these tools without throwing our hands up in the air and saying “Oh well, I guess that’s just the way it is” and having a passive acceptance of the consequences of not thinking for ourselves? One thing I’ve realized after using Chatgpt for awhile is that in fact, it can often be quite wrong.

I’ve experimented with it by asking it some questions that I already knew the answers to and I’ve realized with time that it doesn’t just “spit straight facts” at you, it’s simply an idea machine, generating its answers from the enormous data library which we call the internet. A library that doesn’t just contain facts, but conspiracy theories, accusations, unproven assumptions, biased opinions and so on. Furthermore, it self-censors and is unwilling to entertain unpopular ideas or opinions and may even “argue” that something is unverified without exploring why people may think differently about a topic. I’ve even turned to Chatgpt for advice on how to fix problems of all sorts (nothing IRL related) and the information is often incorrect or simply outdated. This seriously affects its usability and brings down its value considerably. Ultimately I look at Chatgpt the same as I look at wikipedia; a great starting point to do research for sure, but nothing that should be taken at face value. It’s like any other tool; it’s most helpful if you’re able to use discretion and skepticism when using it.

Spring doesn’t have to mean a packed schedule and another drink you regret tomorrow.

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