Helen - we met way back around 2007 or so re a JISC/HEA simulation project I was leading, and I was impressed then with your work. Your blog postings on AI are outstanding - I always look forward to them, learn so much. This post articulates many of my own anxieties about the use of GenAI for research purposes.
Thank you for this. The idea that GenAI really makes us more efficient and produces good or better results, increasingly bothers me. The hype often fails to live up to the lived reality for me.
I kept thinking about "Thinking: Fast and Slow" by Kahneman as I read this excellent post. You write "The benefits of extended practice and slow reflection..." are clearly necessary for authentic inquiry and important theoretical work. But the context in which we work (I'm a classroom teacher) often shapes the ideas about the future and in so doing, our approach and work.
Where do I find this ivory tower, where I might have the time to work at truth's cadence?
Dear Bill, perhaps it's not an entire ivory tower we need but a few openings in the existing edifice. It seems easy enough to open up a space, for example, if you call it an 'AI workshop'. And who knows what might happen in that hour of time and proximity, if we stop using it just to accelerate everyone's productivity to the next level of hype and optimisation? When no-one is looking, we might even find time to talk.
Helen - we met way back around 2007 or so re a JISC/HEA simulation project I was leading, and I was impressed then with your work. Your blog postings on AI are outstanding - I always look forward to them, learn so much. This post articulates many of my own anxieties about the use of GenAI for research purposes.
Hi Paul, I think we met more than once - i remember you of course. Thank you for those kind words. My next post will be a bit more fun than this one.
Thank you for this. The idea that GenAI really makes us more efficient and produces good or better results, increasingly bothers me. The hype often fails to live up to the lived reality for me.
I kept thinking about "Thinking: Fast and Slow" by Kahneman as I read this excellent post. You write "The benefits of extended practice and slow reflection..." are clearly necessary for authentic inquiry and important theoretical work. But the context in which we work (I'm a classroom teacher) often shapes the ideas about the future and in so doing, our approach and work.
Where do I find this ivory tower, where I might have the time to work at truth's cadence?
Dear Bill, perhaps it's not an entire ivory tower we need but a few openings in the existing edifice. It seems easy enough to open up a space, for example, if you call it an 'AI workshop'. And who knows what might happen in that hour of time and proximity, if we stop using it just to accelerate everyone's productivity to the next level of hype and optimisation? When no-one is looking, we might even find time to talk.