ChatSh*t and Other Conversations (That We Should Be Having, But Mostly Are Not)

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming people’s access to and attitudes toward knowledge. It is an extremely powerful technology, but this transformation presents numerous social, environmental, political, and, perhaps, in particular, educational considerations. There is a pressing need to have a profound and nuanced conversation about these considerations, without asking a chatbot for its opinion. Instead, we seem to be having mostly a distractive conversation about singularities, which is arguably a domain of sheer speculation, rather than a more pressing conversation about “the system” that produced the technology and what it is doing right now to people, society, and processes, in particular, the educational process. Therefore, starting from a viewpoint on education as the democratization of knowledge, this article presents six talking points as a contribution to the conversation about those considerations, especially with respect to education.