It will surprise you to know how many more people in the world still don't understand the concept of AI (Artificial Intelligence). I'm a beginner learning about it, and even with the simple basic stuff I have learned, when I try to explain it to friends, it's like I'm speaking some weird robotic language. I believe AI technology is something that's a bit hard to understand in terms of its details for most people but easy to feel excited about.
One girl (Jessica) in my neighborhood who sees me as her big brother now, walked up to me and asked me to help her to learn for her exams. Apparently, it's difficult for her to understand most of the things her teachers teach, and since the class is usually a one-time thing, she finds it difficult to remember everything and keeps failing her high school final exams.
First thing I asked her was, "Have you heard of AI?" She looked at me with a strange look. Right there I knew she had no idea. To make things simple, I explained to her, "Think of AI like a human being that has all the information of the internet and can communicate with you like another person." She was like, "What? Then that person would pass all his exams." I said "kinda," again think of it like I put Elon Musk's chip inside your brain and you can access all the information of the Internet during exams. She laughed and said, "I would be happy but I will take it off after the exams since I don't want to start seeing ads in my dreams." Haha, I learned she is a funny little girl.
I helped her to first download the ChatGPT app on her phone. I said to her, "You see the way you keep sending me WhatsApp messages asking me to explain a term or concept to you? Now imagine you're still WhatsApp-ing me but send the message in the ChatGPT chatbot." She tried one for the first time.
Guess what?
It's been weeks now and she hardly texts me for any help. I tease her whenever I see her on my way to work saying, "Oh so you've found a friend now, right? So you hardly text me." We laugh about it and then I move on.
Well, at the moment I believe AI systems are good enough to teach a high school kid, but I still told her to fact-check online.
What's my point
This technology is going to change our educational system sooner or later. I don't agree with institutions scaring their students away from using AI. No, students shouldn't copy-paste AI stuff when given an assignment; that's not what I'm saying. Just as Jessica gets a one-time lecture and it doesn't help her to fully understand, AI can be the tutor that will tirelessly explain to you a concept a million times if that's what it takes for you to get it. And plus, without charging you for tutoring fees, or telling you out of frustration that you will never succeed in life... Hahaha, I feel your pain teachers.
So let's let our kids understand that AI is there to assist in learning and not necessarily do the job. Let's teach them how to prompt and use the chatbot to try to explain in detail the things the kids are taught.
Like it or not it's the future.
As I shared my experience, you noticed something right? Jessica rarely needed me anymore. The time we talked became less and less as she got to understand and use this technology. I believe this is the fear of teachers. They fear becoming irrelevant, and probably that's why they may frown on their students learning about AI. From my perspective, I think it's going to make your work easier; schools are not going to suddenly disappear, no, but they're going to adapt to the technology. The faster you can adapt, the more you keep your relevance as the up-and-coming kids will adapt to this technology regardless of you trying to stop them. They are kids and they are curious. In fact, they will find ways around it that you can't even tell the difference because you failed to learn alongside them. I believe teachers should learn and understand AI even way more than the kids to be able to guide them properly in the new world we are already in.