Education & AI; Why Global Bildung Day?
What is the Global Bildung Day, why did we start it, and why should you join?
As a species, we share a piece of rock that is floating around a great ball of fire in otherwise rather empty space. Twice per year, for all 8 billion of us — as the rock has the right angle next to the fireball — the day has the same length: On Equinox on March 20 and on September 22 or 23, the day has the same length around the globe. This is an excellent occasion to come together!
As a species, we are now interconnected through digital media. We also share a fate. But we do not do much talking to each other around the globe. We started Global Bildung Day to change this. We need to talk!
Global Bildung Day is a global conversation on Equinox, twice per year, on March 21 and September 21. We chose to make the dates easy to remember rather than shifting around the dates to be scientifically correct (Hey, we’re human!).
Each Global Bildung Day has a unique theme, all Global Bildung Days relate that theme to bildung. On September 21, 2023, the theme is: Education & AI: Bildung to the Rescue?
You’ll find the full program and may sign up here: https://www.globalbildung.net/gbd2023-september-21/
Education and AI; Bildung to the Rescue?
AI has rocked the boat in all parts of the education sector, mostly because teachers and administrators are worried that students are going to get ChatGPT to write their homework. That is a reasonable worry, but we can change education and exams and get around that. The biggest problems may be fundamentally different, and there may be some advantages too.
At the Global Bildung Day we are therefore going to hear about how schools can implement ‘flipped classroom:’ instead of transferring knowledge from teacher to students during school hours, students study and acquire new information at home; the learning takes place when students and teacher meet and discuss what they have studied. If you join us on September 21st, you will hear how this works and what the experiences have been.
AI may be very good in helping the transfer of knowledge, if it is trained on facts. Students may engage with a chatbot that can give them new information on a topic at a pace that works for them. But it is crucial that it does not produce “facts” as randomly as ChatGPT currently does. There needs to be quality control, and the chatbots need to be kept under surveillance. Much more surveillance than any teacher suffers right now. One teacher teaching some misunderstandings from time to time may reach 20–30 students at a time; an AI teaching falsehoods may reach 100s of 1000s.
So, the problem may be mass-dissemination of falsehoods into children’s minds in a setting where they are required to pay attention and remember what they learn.
The opportunity may be to scale education rapidly around the globe.
Fast scaling of AI education that is scientifically correct and helps millions learn useful knowledge faster may pose other problems. To me, two stand out: that under-educated (for the lack of a better word) people in traditional societies may not understand what an algorithm and AI are, and they may ascribe to an AI magical or other powers that it does not have. Secondly, that particularly children, but also adults, will get attached emotionally to the thing. That our brains are manipulated by AIs and their owners because of their ability to mimic human behavior and communication. Even today, social media producers employ psychologists who use their understanding of our minds and emotions to make Facebook, X (formerly known as a bird) etc. as addictive as possible. Imagine what will happen when those same skills are used to make an algorithm “get to know us” and use it against us? Whether it is to make us buy more stuff or think and behave as the government or others want.
Join us!
AI poses existential challenges to us as a species, and therefore we should meet and find out how to deal with it. AI is way too important to be left to the investors, the programmers, and the psychologists they hire to manipulate us.
So join us on Global Bildung Day for a global conversation about education, bildung and AI; more info and sign-up link here: https://www.globalbildung.net/gbd2023-september-21/
Global Bildung Day is not a webinar. It is participation for everybody, and we are all human! (As far as we know.)
Looking forward to meeting you!
