#remember bluebooks? they're baaaaack

[nokingsonlyfooles]

If ChatGPT knows it, you can just look it up!

If ChatGPT knows it, you can just look it up!

If ChatGPT knows it, you can just look it up!

ChatGPT is not capable of innovation or thought, it predicts what words come after other words based on a prompt and search data. If it can pass an exam or produce a paper that you can't immediately identify as AI created, the assignment requires nothing but repeating things we already know. And, ya know what, if a teacher can't tell the difference between mindless repetition and human thought, ChatGPT can grade the assignments too!

In fact, yes, there are AI detecting apps that teachers and students are using to make sure their writing looks human enough - as graded by a computer! (No! The apps can't tell the difference between mindless repetition and human thought with much accuracy either!)

We already know a student can memorize something well enough to pass an exam, and within a semester or so, everything that they're not using will be gone. If they need it, all they have to know how to do is recognize that they need it, and have the critical thinking skills to find accurate information when they look it up.

Real life will not gauge your efficacy based on whether you memorized something or not. We're decades past being able to access basic information on demand - and we do remember what we need on a daily basis, such as whatever the hell we're using to do our jobs.

What is college for? We need to stop vacillating about what college is for. It's very good at sorting people by their privileges, and not very good at teaching them information that they use and retain. So what are we trying to do with these expensive institutions of higher learning?

Teachers are trying to fix the AI problem by requiring handwritten answers - meaning your grade depends on navigating an artificial situation where you have to answer a question with no research tools in a short time, in a curated space that may not be very accessible. This is ableist! If you have poor fine motor skills or difficulty reading or spelling (like me!) or if you need a friendlier space, you will not do as well with a pencil, a bluebook, a tiny desk in a lecture hall, and a stopwatch. (I sure as heck didn't!) And, of course, if you dare to assert that you need accommodation, you're going to have to prove you're not faking it to cheat.

College is already very difficult to navigate with a disability, are we cool with making it even harder? If college is a place for sorting people by their privileges, the answer is yes!

The very first colleges were student run. They got together and decided they wanted to learn a thing, and they hired a guy. They graded him (Yeah, probably not many women and minorities with education privileges at the time, so "him") based on the quality of the information and teaching ability. If the students felt they weren't learning something of value, the teacher didn't get paid.

That wasn't an ideal situation either - it's steeped in the privilege of having enough leisure time and money to pay for an education from someone privileged enough to be known for their skill. But we have come to a place where the students are jumping through hoops to prove themselves worthy of a piece of paper they might be able to trade for enough money to live, and it makes no difference at all whether they retain any of the information they're required to memorize. That is not even peripherally about learning a thing. Why not let an AI do it for them, so they can go learn something of value? (Even if it's just how to make a bong out of a soda can. I mean, that has social and practical utility.)

So are we going to make that even worse, or fix it? Article says: MAKE IT WORSE! YAY!