Episode 45: Billionaires, Influencers, and Ed Tech (feat. Adrienne Williams), November 18 2024
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Welcome everyone to mystery A I hy theater, three thousand, where we received the thar's. In this age of A I hipe, we find the worst of IT and puppet with the sharpest needs we can find along the way.

we learn to always read the footnotes. And each time we think we've reached peak AI hype, the sum of bullshit mountain, we discovered there's worse to come. I am Emily bender, professor benisse CS at the university of washington.

And i'm out hana, director of research for the distributed, a research institute. This is episode forty five, was for recording on november eighteen of twenty twenty four. This week were returning to the classroom in the philanthropist and influencers who are using their big names and big dollars to hype up l EMS. As solutions for educators. We talked about this problem before, but I regret to say, the bull ship continues from .

mark echo g to bill gates is interesting to say the least. How many people without education expertise are trying to quote solo education as if I were a technological quotes problem promising in quotes, comprehensive, AI, tudes, or just educate, inform tools to address other staff classrooms? This hype is just another round of silicon valley pointing to real problems here under supported school systems, but then directing attention and resources .

to their favorite toys.

Today's guest is theirs own research fellow, Adrian Williams. He is also an organizer, a former educator, and has direct experiences with how educational technology shapes classrooms, usually for the worst. Welcome major in hi.

Thank you so much for turning us. I'm super excited to have your expertise on the show with us, and I want to also shut out the chat. Thank you to those who are watching this live on the twitch stream. People who have been here before know that at the end we're going to do the fresh AI hell. And we like to do, or rather make alex do, a little improve. So this time I thought we could do some audience preciptation if you have a brain storm along the way about what would be a great musical prompt for her dropped in the chat and maybe we'll use IT, but I can't say will use IT for sure others SE. It's gonna too much time to plan ahead.

I guess. Yeah, don't let me think I i'll have contingencies making the truth in.

alright. So we are going to start with the first artifact here. And this is an article on the chances arberg dot com website.

Love how the film rapidly things are that com from october elements of this year, headline chance, like a bergerac, commits funding to help educators shape how A I will be used in classrooms. And the subhead is head of education sandal hang announcers. Three new grants focused on increasing collaboration between teachers and ed tech developers. I actually want to take IT in and we can hear from media about what .

this actually is yeah so so the byline I mean, this is a press release, but it's in you know to appeal to actual press in a high in california, the chains occur initiative C I. today. And as three grants supporting artificial intelligence, or A I educational initials in power educators as co creators of future technologies.

The announcement came during a visit to deal junior high school in ana high union high school district, or A U, H, S, D, where C, C, I had a education and V, P of product sanda spent the day learning about the impact of educator informed artificial intelligence tools in the classroom. This is a quote by huang, he said. He says, educator input is crucial for ensuring A I tools and education are contextually relevant, accurate and aligned with learning, says wang. By integrating educators expertise, we can design A I systems that enhance student outcomes and support hear learning experiences. Do you have any .

thoughts on that? They doing too many. First of all, going back to Chris said they don, because these guys in L, L. They say all the time they are philanthropy are l so that they keep in to lobby. They're just h they're just full of shit every day, all day.

Um also the idea of educator, you like inform to me that just crams force labor like teachers wearing your teacher, you know, meeting today, we're going to make you do this stuff you would have to do anyway. And we're going to take IT and we're going to make a bunch of money all of IT. So I know ample disclosure.

The junior high I used to work for was summit public schools, which was the C. I school. They always talk, makes their school and not.

None of IT all god run. If you hear a personalize learning run, it's a crackit. If you hear educator influence, its bs. When I quit, they lost six other teachers of color.

Black teachers like I don't want they take their black teachers and then the next year, pursuit changed her yearly annual letters think they're putting out grants now so that they can figure out how to train and retain black teachers. And it's like bit, if you would just listen to us in the first place, we won't left. You don't need to train us wear right here.

but you don't liso therefore of that yeah and have you say when I read think my my recent there's kind of nothing here. There's not saying anything yeah except all I got out of IT was, you know oh we're going to make sure that we get no educator expertise on board and how to shape the A I. And there was no like room of the educators say, hell no we're .

not doing in that all those educate, fire or pushed out yeah .

what's interesting is to see like who's a thing written for imminent users IT is very funny that this this person song lua hang is like both the head of education in the V P of product you know um and so you know like and so basically the kind of thing is who is this appealing to I mean, to me that seems like appealing to a set of funders is not using yeah shareholders. Founders mean people you it's actually I was looking to the decide this article which is that related articles are are rooted us .

would this arrow dius to hear .

one hundred fifty million series f funding LED by you know whatever I don't care and what the funds name IT is. But it's basically the ideas like, okay, this isn't appealing to educators. Like educators are going to have to basically, you know, they're just going to have to like just heal and and take IT whatever they have.

They are like founders. Please jump on board on our like on our on our on our technology or our technological tool. That's kind of this revolutionary ize, revolutionary ize. I can't say that word. I'll stick with IT, but it's kind of make completely transform education.

Yeah so should we jump on over to a call? Can saying affected with that same thing?

Yeah I mean, the soul can't. Yeah, let's go into this.

Is the industry talking point the same thing?

yes. Yeah so this next one is on is on the conomo adem blog and and you know I don't I don't know you've mentioned soccer on this podcast but probably um so the title is silk to twenty twenty three ted talk A I in the classroom can transform education and it's got the natural like picture of slang n he was a um like a southeast of man with a go tea wearing a blue shirt cocky is sitting in front of the big red ted sign um and he says saw ham believes that artificial intelligence has the potential to transform education for the Better quite where are the cup of using A I for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen he said in his twenty twenty three ted talk .

yeah and so can yeah right I get a glimpse of a new era in education, one where every student has access to an AI power personal tutor and every teacher has an AI teaching assistance.

This is just exhAusting and i'm not even in kate while education but go so aren't going to play the ted talk but is little bit in the show knows if you want to go watch IT and it's just so much magical thinking and so much like this vision of a very atomized educational experience. But some of that and then and then, okay, the first subhead here is the quote, two sigma problem and A S solution. Benjamin blooms one thousand and eighty four two signs study highlight the benefits of one to one two in which resulted in two standard deviation improvement in students performance.

Bluem referred to this finding as the two sigma problems once providing one to one two term to all students as long been unattained due to cost and scalability issues. I'll shared how A I has the potential to scale this tutoring economically and provide personalized instruction students on a global level. With the help of an AI power assistant during this talk, I gave a live demo of kind academy's new air powered guide, kn mego .

thoughts that, yeah.

I mean, my whole thought on this whole thing is that if you had every teacher had a aid and every principal had a VP and they were actually there business in the classroom, you wouldn't need these tractors because that's what aides are for. And most of what I did as a teacher wasn't actually the learning, the kids pick up that learning very quickly.

If their happy and they're comfortable, they've eaten booed and they are aren't being bully, you know, mean, if if they are just there to learn and they like their teacher and their teacher likes them, they learned very quickly. But my main job when I was a teacher was like, how are you? What's gone on? I know yesterday was rough for you.

Like, how did that happen? How's your relationship with your best friend? I knew you guys been fined and then the kid feels Better and they're like, okay, I can learn now. But when they have ten thousand other things going on their head, the last thing that's gonna help some thing in A I bot tell, you know, just saying whatever hycy ating whenever IT wants to. And the kid can't make heads or tails of any of that, and nobody cares if they are frustrated or stuck.

No personal connection, right, is just like everyone go into their own little stereo corner with their own little sterile copy of come.

go and please .

like I go I mean.

that just feels like a weird, funky name just itself.

yeah. Is this possible? Like academy plus omeo?

That's yeah, that's my, that's my. It's yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah.

Yeah I mean, it's it's really what's interesting because in this so so I want this to talk he talks about this cordon could to seek my problem, which I mean is Benjamin bloom. I'm not sure. Background, i'm assuming, is an educational psychologist.

IT basically says like okay benchland bloom so already first it's it's quite IT yeah he's an educational think he also is very famous for like blooms to hierarchy or taxonomy. I know you love that word, but like but like different category ing different educational rules. But this is an old, very old dark light minutes.

It's from nineteen eighty four. And insane like you know, he study highlight the benefits of one to one, two dering. And it's really interesting how he talks about.

He says there's a two sigma problem. There's two standard deviation improvements and students performance. So to me, this is is very unlike, first of very old, there's been mounds of educational psychology research since then too. This is the kind of thing I references on the a few thousand years ago where ali occupy said, you know, this is like a computer science tourist thing like we just dropped in we thought something was sounded cool like two sigma that sounds like sixth sigma lean certification and whatever you know kan I don't know um whatever trial board i'm just story of every every project manager word I know um and then we are basically making such that were you like we're going to solve this based on very old the kind of stereotypes of educational psychology yeah i'd like maybe not.

And on top that the graph that he shows in the in the ted talk from that two sigma study is very like bill carvey. So you've got the basic bell curve. Then here's what happens with a certain kind of input.

Here's happens another kind and is a very vague graph. Like is, okay, what exactly are the axes? What are you measuring here? What's been boiled down to those bulkers? But also, how do you not get itchy talking about students in terms of bulk curves?

Yeah, yeah, that's sure.

Yeah, yeah. So in the next bit of this, uh, the next headline here there, the next up head is, can me go a comprehensive, A I tutor, instead of hurrying about students using A I to cheat? So sad.

We should focus on the positive cases. Can we go? Not only the text students mistakes, but that also identifies misconceptions in their understanding and provides effective feedback.

IT can help students with math and computer program exercises and can provide context aware help for video content. And this, I was so angry, is like IT is not actually identifying misconception that has no there there is no personal connection there, right there. There is no connection between student and teacher, student and tuder.

It's just spitting out some text and cattle. Er i've got oiler here right nearby so we might get some pouring on. Mike.

I also say that like when all my kids were on the gradient learning platform when I was teaching, we really do our kid well. They I feel like do mick a disservice because I was enriched in california and is perceived that these are just low income, don't want to learn kids. It's not that don't think they can't learn.

It's like what these kids don't want to learn and their families don't care about them. My kids and I don't know why I was the teacher that they would tell everything too because sometimes I be like, you know, my teacher, right? Like i'm I have to tell somebody, where are you telling me this? They would tell me, like our miss liam's, we cheat.

We know how to cheat on this. I got to do with this, this and then, and then we just cheat. Every technology that comes out, the kids, even in the schools that have been disregarded as being intelligent, the kids figure out how to cheat.

The only way they don't cheat is when you say we're going to have a discussion and I want to see who read. So let's just talk about this. It's actually not as complicated as they make IT seem in all of these ted talks.

And all of this teaching, to me, wasn't that complicated. It's like, here's what I want you to know. Here's how I get you in the mood for learning and then we're going to just discuss IT until I know that you know what's going on.

I don't know. You have every test in my classroom because I could tell which kids know what they were talking about and which kids did IT. And then the ones that didn't you just hold him back first.

I can come see me at lunch for three of you and let's discuss this. And why didn't you get IT? And what happened in many times is not that they didn't want to do IT, is that they have a ton of other stuff going on. And it's hard for me as to kind of wrap my head around the fact that any of these, those who seem like a lot of trust fun babies, even have a concept of the type of stress and responsibility that kids like mine had to deal with so yes, of course they're distract yeah but none of that is taken into consideration and there's just like work cheap proof i've been one hundred dollars on IT. You can't make a .

cheap proof yeah yeah.

And well, that's interesting. I mean.

so everything said there they are coming in. They are assuming ing the problem as people aren't high enough on that score of that score is and assuming that, that is just because they don't have access to how they imagine education happens and then trying to build a fake version of that as opposed to actually getting in and maybe actually not getting in at all. Maybe just standing back.

maybe maybe we are going .

away paying more taxes so that we could actually find the schools Better.

right? Yeah yeah. I mean, the interesting thing about this too is like, yeah I mean, I appreciate interesting, Adrian, and the kind of idea there is a particular vision of like who is the right audience for these tools you know it's like, okay, we're gonna these things in and gates and in the next art of fact, gates talks about this in terms of like equity.

So it's like, oh, we need of like it's gonna be this thing where, you know, the students who are don't have access to one of one, two days are gna give that experience and these disadvantages ols. And we went to the disadvantages, these students got the kind of one and one thing that my kids would get, you know and and there's like this opposition to IT. They try to make IT reliable by basically saying, like mid uses IT all the time and you know like and I love tudor, my good.

I like so kon you i'm i'm sure like you spend a lot time with your kids, but you know you are not the main instructor or in their lives and to be acting like such and to act like your students don't have immense kind of immense privileges, just spite nature of you being this technology, tech mono right now moga very mongo. That's a different way. I know I I am bad at working today.

Tech mogul, mongo is a go. Yeah yeah. As if you're a tech model that does have access to just a mint amount of social cultural capital.

I also think there's a misconception, unlike how technology is taught and utilized and really high fancy expensive schools verses what they tell people in lower um income schools. I was looking at the school and I can't member the name of IT now like lake view, lakeside, some word bill gates kids went to school.

It's like, side is here in seattle.

Okay, there we go. And i'm looking at that sounds fabulous. I mean, that sounds amazing.

I'd in my there but their way of dealing with technology as they teach all these things, here's digital literacy, here's how to build a game, here's how to do this had like a real curriculum on how to use technology verses low income schools, is we're just gonna use technology to basically deal with you. We're not not going to teach you how to doing anything with IT. We're just gonna IT to kind of police you and keep you in this box. And we're going to take all the data and the information we're you use IT to build more products so we can get rich.

That's right. Yeah, there's there's a book out that makes a bit at this point rather crooks. Who is that? You see, you see I think you see irvine and a rather as a book out that's called them oh, I get IT.

It's wasn't on your website right away, but it's basically about surveilLance and schools. I mean, effectively the way that I think it's called access tonight. But effect vely in a lake. These tools, when they're used in these neighbourhoods, have the dimension of the tech has vastly different form.

And I relates something to what they talk about, what a kn talks about, the talk where you think like, well, we're also going to allow, you know, the teachers so, like, see what the queries are in, can mego right? So you can really quickly imagine how I I don't even called, called. You can imagine how this A I tool, such as it's such a but IT becomes a vector for you know for like for surveilLance.

You know maybe the kids are asking, you know things like, I don't know, like they just wanted watch you know, something like, you know, there there's a whole bunch of things or asking about like some important life things or you know, whenever and then just becomes another, another, another venue for surveys. I mean, we don't have anything from salkin about like, well, what's your privacy policy? Are you can law enforcement access the things that kids are say, uh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, yeah, that was, that was torture because we knew the answers. Yes, right? yes.

So that go here. So I want to .

bring to the next paragraph.

because IT talks about some of this stuff. So positive and appropriate interactions is the heading. We believe that A I can transform education, but we also understand that IT comes with limitations and risks because you've got ta have like a little fine print at the bottom and right that's why we clearly communicate these limitations to every parent, teacher and child who uses can mego yeah right? We limit the amount of interaction individuals can have with the A I per day.

Additionally, each children's chat history and activities are visible to parents or guardians and teachers, so they can stay informed and involved in their child's child's education. There's the surveilLance, right? And our platform also uses moderation technology to detect inappropriate interactions. And when IT does, IT sends an automatic alert, an automatic email alert to an adult.

So is like, you have great, not only is IT doing surveilLance, but IT is like doing push surveilLance, right? Even if the adults around, like ever gonna not spend a lot of time monitoring that they're gona get this push in their inbox d contextualize right? And who knows what happens next?

And some of those push notifications go directly to police station. And so that's what makes me even scarier. I heard a story about um a kid who was looking up information because his mom had surfaced cancer.

And so words like vagina and things like that, we're popping up and IT was a push notification about a procreate content and looking up things that we're inappropriate. And I got all these bills where you had now police come to the school and cps coming. And meanwhile, this four kid is stressed because his mom has cancer.

Yeah, and there's nothing .

in there to say, no, this is wants.

Yeah why? I know that that there is another thing that I know other hundred um carbajal written about about there was this potential for basically like clear words being flagged. And imagine that happening in school districts in states that have anti trains and anti L G B T Q legislation.

And I mean, under incoming regime, true regime, I mean, that's going to be another aspect in which I can be an access vanter on document students, right? Yeah I mean, and you know rich ban is an area that is something like it's like sixty percent that night. I mean, it's there's something of that nature.

I mean, it's it's in just easy and more generally, right? So there's huge factors here of a privacy implications that could be on just the A I but this is about you know contact mental systems and everything. Yeah.

it's scary. I know when I was teaching, I had a little girl who was dealing with her dad might get deported. The whole family had to go down his court.

IT was all the way in santiago. And these are things SHE shared with me as at her mentor, because they have a mentor program, which is just a way to get around having real counsellors. But we were supposed to type all those notes into our work issued computer.

So if you're trying to black students who have, you know, family members who are illegal, I don't like that word, but who are undocumented um you could just go they could just handed over. Here you go see you handed right over because you know there into favors from the government. So here you go.

Or talking about abortion and i've had kids comes to me talking about several violence, having abortions. Okay, so we're going to hand that information over. So what we onna arrest of fifteen year old now and put her in jail because he had some horrible experience.

Yeah, yeah.

It's nights. He is one thing I want to touch before I leave this senior to the the bill get article is if you watch this video, it's like, it's really near the end. It's like this lasting your role in the future of ai.

And I want to read the text. And then beder ate something he says in the video, so says, sell, emphasize everyone has a role to play in shaping the future of education. But we all had the fight like health for the positive use cases. He said, no, I don't want IT. And this was because he basically says.

some people are excited about A I, and some people think it's going to come here. So we have to fight like out for the positive buse cases. And i'm like, no, we have to fight like collegiate this and nonsense and redirecting what resources they are for education into the tech L, C, S. pockets. That's what we should be fighting.

right? And there should be some regulation around forcing you to not even be able to implement IT until your positive use cases are the majority right now, like we don't care of only one. And look, we did IT wow.

Ah really scary.

And then on top of that data.

minimization, because one of the things that is very clear from you're saying agan and very unclear to sol, apparently, is that kids bring their whole selves to school. Their whole lives are going on. And so if you are setting things up so that conversations are being captured all the time, you are going to be putting them at enormous risk because things like data should not be captured, except like we know is being captured and everybody involved is aware. And IT is in a space that's not preventing them from bringing their whole selves to school .

and doing what I need to deal with. Yeah, have wanted people to capture my junior high thoughts. And the idea that .

is definitely not. And he makes this point. He says, this is IT in the written account. He says something like, he basically makes this anti regulation argument, where he says, look, we're we're going to come up with the good use cases, but like those bad actors are going to in these sites like hackers and authority, an governments as if, you know, as if there are not people in the in the us. Who want to target minorities, zed populations like they're gonna use this in a bad way and we and his like you know and he says, like you know, we need smart regulation and that for me is like it's a dog with so for effective ly saying like we don't want regulation um to restrict the coral code positive use cases. And this is using this platform like this where one of the good ones as if the whole project wasn't fuck from .

the beginning. There's a chat here from Kelly champion that I want to lift up. They say i'm not a rosy in persae, but where's the headline about how lakeside that is the school that gates sent his kids to? We'll be placing its teachers and to ters with A I if it's so good, presume that type to school in the state will be all over IT.

None of them have IT. exactly. It's only good for our kids, their kids.

There is actually an article I read not too longer about how the richest among us are having their kids go to schools that actually have an absence of technology. They're writing with ins and pencils. They're going outside in nature to learn about science.

They read books on paper, not on tablets, and is a big push to get away from technology. And the more they push for their kids to get away, the more they're pushing for the technology to be in our schools. Our faces .

yeah yeah yeah alright so speaking of lake side and bill gates also eller back, let's take a look at um gates notes, the blog of bill gates. You know I like blog. I think bloggs that was a good innovation on or of the world needs bill gates blog.

Bill gates, this blog is like, um this is a series of press releases and it's is just really dressed same I they do the exact same .

formula yeah so the the sticker here is .

school of thought haha headlined my trip to the frontier of AI education and then sub had first avenue element school in york is pioneer the use of A I tools in the classroom and I just wanted flag the um colonies language there in both headline in subhead frontier and pioneering is gross and I agree well then he starts with his heartful .

my story about how he of the world's .

fair okay fine um let's get down to where he's actually talking about when he saw in the school um in may I had the chance to visit the first avenue elementary school where they're pioneer the use of AI education in the classroom the new ork school district is pile can mingo ki can me go and A I powered tuder and teacher support tool and I couldn't wait to see IT for myself so yeah talk about he's written a lot about IT I was blown away by how creatively teachers were using the tools. Laticia colan eighth grade algebra teacher explained how he used A I to create problem sets about hometown heroes the students might be interested in. In fact, worry can we go helped develop equations that incorporated new ork boxers shocker Steven sons work out routines so her students could practice math skills while learning about a real world role model.

This is, this is, this is, this is some areas. I'm just like, i'm just, uh, man oil er is so well.

good, right?

I will .

not encouraging her yeah no.

it's great. I'd love, I love but also very love ah yeah and then there's also other aspects of like host on assignments where IT gave her a hook for a generic story about a fruit stand. Then he added IT to be about pokey mon cards in row blocks and as and then, and IT says, and this is a funny quote from the like, from the teacher, which I read as kind of be crushing, says, kind me, gives me the blue print, but I have to give the delivery sort of like, I can't believe what you when you're .

teaching you get so much stuff, the room at you. And it's the most bizarre thing because that would be this really complex program. There's really complex like set of ideas.

Be like meeting on wednesday. Here's everything we want to implemented tomorrow and you're like, huh? And IT happened at public schools, charter schools. I don't know about the private schools, but IT happens all across the board.

So i'm sure he is thinking that like, I guess that gives me a blue print for something, but I still have to figure out how to do IT. And this fall, like, uh, we used a local town hero in my one math problem. You could replace anybody in a word problem that .

doesn't take A I no.

exactly.

yes. exactly. yeah.

And it's it's very, I don't know like and there's a comment in the chat. There's two common sooners. So I write lumps, says i'm a set for bill gates to ruin education in amErica a second time and then and then time in malaysia, who I knows pays attention to due to trial education a lot, says bill gates should only be treated with ridiculous storm by anyone who cares about public through top education.

And that's so much of the story, right? I mean, one thing I don't think we've talked about connecting all this in you. I love for you to talk about more because you've been focusing a lot on this too, is the way that these foundations, gates, you know, primarily gates, but also C, C, I, now have been getting into education so much and reshaping IT in a way that very much towards, in the four in their image, things that they think is the best for students. Yeah, yeah. I mean.

i've been trying to scream this from everywhere I can for, like, the last seven years that the corporate charter movement in itself is trying to take over education completely. And people look at me like I, A tin foil head on. But now you look at project twenty twenty five and they like you.

We're going to take over education and probably get rid of IT. And bill gates started doing this way back in like two thousand eight when he was working in promoting a company called in balloon in new york. And in blow was just like, we just want to collect your student data.

They were very out from with that. This is just about collecting student data and was like, let's to do IT and somehow we will revolutionize education. But he didn't have any like real way to do that.

And the parents and the teachers and the kids kind of blew that out the water and gates when underground and pop back up, giving money to see I support and summer public schools, and really pumping money into the corporate charter movement and all of these in tech products because again, the end goal is not to educate your kids. If that was the case, that d be at their kids school. The end goal is to get as much data as possible to use IT for whatever products they can come up with even if they're dumb and they hurt society.

Yeah and I think some of that the discussion there's another book and you know I like to recommend .

books anybody listen .

resources I am a walking silver. There is a book by um Crystal sims. I'm dropping in the check. It's called disruptive fixed tions.

And it's really you know it's a it's a book basically where you know Crystal, he's a science textiles use flash come his professor at U. C S D. And it's basically like about this educational reform and about these kind of digital tools developed in the first wave. And IT was a cooked school for digital kids. They want to start these new schools, and I was very much funded, but they .

don't dids distro kids.

I don't know that's what that is, a quote, school for digital kids. I guess it's kids that just live on robo ks or live journal um something of that nature and and yeah sorry in the region raptor says ur S M R drop ten years of oil anyways yeah but basically like gate is not named in the book, but it's effectively like gates is the being protagonist here and you know basically like even when stuff goes incredibly wrong, like there's no actually ability, they're like, oh, but we really, really want to try this and you know is gathering of data is trying to reshape schools to look a lot different from the public school regime that we've had four decades in the us. I think this should be .

also named that like he has been trying to do this in two thousand and nine. The government let him experiments on eight percent of american schools. So that's like millions of schools. And then he created a common core, which he himself said was a failure, yet almost every state still implemented in their district. And he came up with the conclusion that, well, you know, this idea I had for smaller classes and this and then the other, I didn't actually change any outcome.

Because on the side of IT, what he said was poverty, race, immigration, status, central orientation, all these things that bring extra stress to people's lives because they have to figure IT out because life is complicated. None of that has anything to do with the ability of a student to learn. None of that that should be brought into IT interesting, smaller class sizes.

And we can make this happen. What he realizes not only did he didn't work, but IT actually made IT harder for a lot of kids, because when classes, when schools are so small, you can't have sports, you can have a chess club, you can have any kind of extra curricular ors. And so students who may thrive because they got to go play basketball, and now they know they're got to keep up that grade in order to play the thing they love, all of that disappeared. And he even said, oh, after nine years or whatever a week was a failure, you could have spent two years at two weeks at a continuation school and realize that that wasn't gonna work. But he's so in his own head that he's like this you bringer of life that he doesn't even realized he doesn't nobody he's doing and everybody so fit matiz ed by him they don't realize that he doesn't nobody's doing .

yeah and no one asks for proof up front, right? That's what you were saying before record. And like so i'm looking at this gates, no thing there's a part where he says, in other words, my visit to new, where we are starting from with a ye in the classroom, but not where the technology will end up eventually.

So it's all these promises. great. It's gonna be. And yet, where's the due diligence before we give these two kids who are doing their schooling?

No.

they don't. I know the school I worked that they would doctor the data. So would be like a hundred percent of our kids are accepted into college. They don't ever say how many of them are are you know, graduating from college.

And I was told by a teacher that worked at a different summer that he was like, i've seen, you know, admin pulled their own credit card out of their pockets. I know you have to apply to this this particular university because this particular university has a one hundred percent acceptance rate. And then we go and we say, we have a one hundred percent color gic setons right?

That's well, yeah object test her in the chat said, yeah, I remember when gates cats so defensive when linsey, in whose journalist asked tes are regarding common core about whether he has too much power or education ah yeah yeah and I mean that I mean, yeah, there's no accountants you basically say, well, we need to let us play out meanwhile you've mess up a whole generation of kids on .

these tools exactly are together every celebrity C E O and VC firm owns of school so you have like read hastings helping him make netflix documentary. Even the read hastings owns despite e charter schools, they all work together to just ruin everybody. And I would love people to think about that when we talk about democracy, what does democracy look like when corporations are in in charge of every single child's education?

No.

that's a horrible fy.

There's so there's one more point in the text that is really like a new sapper. So this technology is far from perfect at this point. Although the students I met loved using comme overall, they also mentioned that IT struggle to pronounce systematic names, yes, and complain that its only voice option as a mal, which makes IT clear how much thought must be, must still be put in to making technology inclusive, engaging for all, engaging for all students.

Um yeah and then and then on the teachers and in an ideal world, the A I would know what the students in this drag first class are into no, that's terrible. That's that's a nightmare. No, that's not ideal at all then.

So SHE wouldn't have to do any editing and miss collin told me he would took IT took her several tries to get conmee to give her what he wanted. And i'm just like imagine the kind of manufactured like manufactured thing. We're like gates actually enter the school and you have to like meet with this huge funder and like giving feedback .

like the turn. So Christine, our producers pointing out in the chat that comico is a spanish word mining with me, although I don't actually to speak.

and more that .

yeah and he says maybe kind academy was trying to get like A A pn with a spanish word and so the fact that .

I can't pronounce sylvania names even .

that's great. Uh, Christian irony sensor is, yes, I imagine yeah incredible, incredible stuff.

So so know, one of the things that I think happens here sometimes is in the tech world, if you build something, and like you trying your dog food, food, whatever you are talking about a few epes ago, IT doesn't work. Oh, will build something new, right? But dream, I love to hear you speak to a little bit of what happens when IT doesn't work and it's in the schools.

Well, you just they don't listen to you say IT doesn't work and they are like make you IT. They just don't they say either. So I know with summit, they were giving out there online learning platform to any public school that wanted.

And there was a lot of headlines a couple years ago right before coit. About in brooklin, they protested and walked to mark oker bergs office in new york. And we don't want this technology in our schools.

And there was another one, the mid d was with the same thing. We don't want this. IT doesn't work.

The teachers are like, our kids are on mine too long, they're not learning. And mark zuker berg is always at your fault. Well, you're not implementing IT, right? Your kids shouldn't be online more than ninety minutes a day.

You don't know how to use the tools, but I worked at an actual sum at school, and my kids were on around five and six hours a day. Their eyesight was breaking down. There were suffered bad pain, neck pain, migrants, and they were not learning anything that when I left, I had large majority of my mentors left as well.

And I had parents called me saying, holy shit, I didn't realize how behind my child was. And now I have to hire a private to or to get them caught up just to be in west contracts. And now I don't know how many people are in brom, california, barry, but west contrast is not like the gold standard of school districts.

So I do that. You have to get caught up to be a west contractor. They're saying something about your tech in your system. They just like it's it's very cultish. When I started, IT was like, we're going on this camping trip and we're all going to play these dumb games in the dirt and we're all going to like talk about how much we love this place and if you had a descending opinion, you were just like, yeah, well, you don't know what you're doing every time.

Yeah um yeah there's there's one piece there's one piece here I want na read because like there's kind of some reading between the lines here, which is the educators I met in york are two pioneers again, kind of revisiting in the colonial language somewhere on the cutting edge, constantly looking for a new ways to use A I in the classroom others were using in the more limited fashion.

And just like if you're obviously this is not a blog which is straight from the minor, bill gates probably has a good editing for like the lead of his becomes lead on his foundation. But to even put like the kind of critique in there as her hesitant is like, I imagine that trip was pretty contention like this should have a high school. I don't want to use IT. Why are we doing this?

And that seems to be just adding more work for teachers to do. Teachers go to there. The way they talk about IT is that like teaching is in a profession that people don't go to school and get masters and P H, D.

And how to be good teachers like it's just this thing, you're just a camp counsellor. Anyone do IT and what they're doing is just adding more work to a professionals play. Teachers know what they are doing. They know how to get kids where they need to be. But around every corner, somebody's clip in their wings and say, no, we don't want you to do that.

Yeah, yeah, we don't want to do that. And but by the way, we're also gona collect all the data. We're watching you and we're watching your kids. And yeah, it's feel like .

teaching you feel like member, when you were well, I knew when I was at all watch like those cartoons, like lon tones and stuff like that. And if you'd be in a boat and they're be like a hole and they stick a finger in and then another whole part you stick a finger and and then another whole you stick in its own in. And not that I feel like IT is trying to be a teacher in this DNA like you just constantly trying to build these holes while doing the job.

You know how to do? No.

that's right. IT seems like the a these A I companies are just the ones that are making these new holes or or that they're rather giving you incredibly complicated whole filling device, which I actually doesn't fill the .

holes at all, makes you think.

yeah, it's actually a LED depositors. So they on this metaphor is really gone away from me, but I I stand by IT.

All right. So as we didn't get any suggested prompts in the chat that I saw anyway, so you need to tell me we're doing musical this time, right? Well.

well, we doesn't .

have to be. So you want .

music on music.

Do you have a style, mind?

You know, you know, shapiro row in lesbian pop.

okay, so chapel roan.

sorry.

I am like chapel role.

not chapel roan pronouncing her name like dave chapel, forgive me in the co. Girls where I ve sent alright.

chapel row in lesbian rock, you are singing a song about the day that you were teaching a class. And IT turns out all the students were replaced with chapman. Ts.

okay, i'm having wicked dreams way down and from, can I see? But all the students, I cannot even see, they've got their zoo m windows blacked outs. I can't see their eyes.

I must only surmise that they are all A S what have you done? You've taken all the students and they're gone out away. 妈妈， no, I can't think john y cash .

fill to IT yeah .

I mean, it's got that that is that why you know chapter roon's from tendency missouri so .

you know that all right. Thank you alex. We are out in red I hell um starting with something totally on topic for today's theme. This is A A ski on blue sky by doctor em who's handled, by the way, at work studies which was kind of fun um and he says, I thought this was a parody, apparently is authentic advert. It's not authentic advert for A I D mia C O seemingly part of ChatGPT m depty travel by these brain scheme images, are you? And you want to tell what we're looking out here?

I have no idea. I'm wrong to ask, because none of this even makes sense to me. I mean.

opening not be anywhere .

near education. And IT seems to me like maybe with AI you lose brain matter on that left side or right yeah .

that was looking like.

yeah like me like you were smarter without A I IT seems like they're .

saying IT yeah it's yet it's like a line that is more swiftly in a line that's like less dances with the eye but it's I mean the signals supposed to be like you are more scattered without the .

eye but that's hope thank .

yeah like so I look like there's less going on in your .

brain with that and yeah radio dims fall in the region around the chair both had the same joke which .

was basically smooth the fire brain with ah that's a .

good that's good like yeah ah alright so really did not read the room there in the ad if you see .

the cat is terrorizing by we have the pointed out there are two kids but I mean just destroying .

the coach well, I had you could freaking out the background was far away. Didn't make okay.

this seems like okay.

this next ones a little bit involved, but I really wanted to share IT. This is a paper from last year's emp, which stands for piro methods in natural english processing, and the title is prompting is not a substitute for probability measurements in large language models and is by a Jennifer who and Rogers. Levy, levy, levy, i'm sorry, Roger.

I don't know what your name. And what they've done is we've basically there was a nice example that I can roll down to here. They have taken several large language models. And with a large language model, you can actually open IT up and see the probability distribution over words at any given point.

So they're doing that and they're comparing what happens if they put in a butterfly is a flying insect with four large, and then look at the word distribution of what comes next to what if they said. Instead, here is a sentence, a butterfly as a flying insect with four large, what word is most likely to come next? And what they find, not terribly surprisingly, is that the vocabulary tribute is different between those.

In other words, you can that affect of the matter of how probable each word is in the model to come next at any given point. But if you try asking the system what word is like we to come next, it's not going to give you that information because that's not how it's built. And this paper is solid, I think, is good research. But also I am so frustrated that I had to be done because obviously, we shouldn't be asking the synthetic text extreme machine for information in the form of words because all IT has is these distributions of which words are likely to come next. And IT obviously can't even answer those questions directly if you post IT as a question, rather than just looking at the numbers that are inside.

did they say which one? Did they say which one is more? I guess they don't know. They have access to the model, but like which ones which one is more correct to the actual word distribution?

And so in order to to know that you would have to look at the training data would try down. But I suspect that the actual one is pretty correct because that's what they are good at, is what I could become next depending on how much additional .

fittings have been done. right?

Yeah right. Thank you for letting me vent about that.

Yeah tolly.

I can do .

this next one, which is, so this is a kind old one. This is a wired, the is microsoft err complexity are promoting scientific c racism and search results by David gilbert lead the web's biggest A I powered certaines are featured the widely develop idea that why people originally ally appear to other races. So this is, you know, ai stop doing race science chAllenge parents encies impossible.

You know, basically mimic all the stuff. And so, I mean, it's and so then the the first program, A I futur changes like for microsoft, uh, google and propulsion. Have been serving deeply races and widely demount research for any ray science in the idea that White people are genetically suppered to not White people.

Patric hermanson, a researcher with U. K. Based anti racism, will hope not hate was in the middle of of a months long investigation into the resurgent rate science movement when he needed to find out more information about a debunk data set that claim M. I use force can be used to prove disappearing on the White race, he was invested. The human diversity foundation is here.

yes. Okay.

great. Long time to the world human diversity foundation organization. Um was looking I Q. He talked in pakistan I Q.

Rather than getting this, he was presented with goods A I overviews which confusing to him, was on by default. He gave him a definitive answer of eighty um so A I overviews this outputs straight up. Ray science .

yeah and and you and it's on by default, you can turn that off now they ve finally add something where you add minus A I to the end of your search queue. You don't get the overviews. But not only is this turning up the ray of science, IT is just like shoving out of people.

Now, hopefully most people are not asking this question like her. Manson had a prety good reason for going in to doing this search. But like anybody else doing this search actually was going to be more far more acceptable table to believing that output if they're asked me that question in the first place, which is terrible all right um more terrible. Lance, this is an ap article um from october twenty six.

Headline is researchers say an AI power transcription tool used in hospitals invent things no one ever said by garbage and huk a shell on um and uh so this is about the transcription tool whisper from OpenAI um and IT makes you up, of course and these things are called hlubis ation which is a problem and there's a different so uh, if you were using a regular automatic transcription system, you are sometimes going to get incorrect things, transcribe bed. But it's always entertaining to see what happens in training in a sort of sad way. Two people's names, for example, in a text speech, sorry, speech to text system where if it's an unfamiliar name, if it's not in the system training data, then what's going to come out is something that kind of matches the sounds.

And you can sort of see just how poorly the systems have done in terms of being trained or data when that happens. But whispers is something different because it's a large language model. And so IT will sometimes just like keep going and put out stuff that nobody said.

And so there's a study um by where to go. But while university mission, an researcher um said he found halcyons in eight out of every ten audio transcriptions he inspected before he started trying to improve the model. So basically third developer found whole stations in nearly every one of the twenty six thousand transcribe he created with whispers. So this is constantly out putting nonsense into transcriptions that are being the things being used over the place in hospital. So this, like fake stuff, is going .

into people's records .

about this one too. Going yeah, but it's it's it's .

hard to avoid these A I power transcription tools now because medical transformation is are not in house anymore and they've either been replaced by a kind of remote transform ists or now they're trying to completely eliminate those transrapid ist with A I or like a automatic condition .

stuff yeah okay, I guess some funny stuff coming this ones not quite as funny next .

two but this one yeah this is business insider. As the rise of god GPT might still realist conversations with Cathy the opening churches, new priest by in quotes and then this is by john Brandon from november third um and IT starts, Cathy, what can I do about my social anxiety in account for churchy answers that help you Cathy is a new A I chap but that answer the face questions on the perspective of a friendly acknowledgement a piscopal a big open on despite his family name. The quote prefer as chat lez sometimes called itself is generous there are no orate flowing robes or closed either but like a wide air Cathy.

don't right and with an answer answer because no more .

in theory text but I I do read this down here where IT says is as, quote, what went when the journalist as why? What about when I feel like panicking? I ask and and IT responds, quote, it's generally best not to do that, Kathy said, and oh, okay and so this .

is rever lazo the bridge, as says cati represents our innovative approach to leveraging technology and support of spiritual espionage. You know what the innovation I really want to see is people find a different ways to say, hell, no, that's that's what I want.

I got interesting that the the church, I don't know, do IT I yeah like, you know, every institution this is we're getting into some institution als all converge to bullet shit technology kind .

of but anyway, for religion, if they start doing yeah like .

yeah but I mean, at least for going to turn, I mean, if you're just giving me a chat, but what do I what I go to your .

church forwards okay, so this one was funny. yeah. So last airlines introduces self driving wilcher pilot program at sea tech airport. So these are these, a little self driving bill chairs, where you entered the gate, you want to go to IT takes you there. This is A A picture of somebody from, like, the chest down and setting you one of them.

And the funny story I wanted here is that a friend of mine was there at seattle airport a couple weeks ago, and one of these things had, like driven up to the bank of waste bins. So now have trash, recycle, compost or whatever. And it's a voice is saying, please move, you're in the way. Please move, you're in the way to the trash can. and.

Incredible.

really good. And then what was the last one? Oh yeah, I like you want to do this one.

yeah. So this is from india, access AI, but is so dumb, can't tell the difference between a bad game and vandalism. M um so shooting bricks in basketball and throwing bricks at people's homes are not the same thing.

Crock, this is my sam brother, ford and the others like an image of a baseball game on like a phone. So what is the text of this would see last night the goal, state wars got play times and had a rough outing. Shootings year for ten in a loss against the kings and in the team stances are making the playoffs really this year.

This is an April.

Oh, are they? Wow.

really last season.

the season, last season, and they're bad. I I think I injured two anyways, but then also almost as if to and insular injury access AI background h generated a training story claiming top son was being in homes .

at the .

earlier with brakes. I mean, I don't know, five times the bad game, we didn't make the players. Maybe I talked a few bricks and some side homes, especially that people, in fact, that cleaning they're of the bay area.

But I dig he's the is anymore.

Yes, I didn't know that. okay. All right.

Well, that was our full tour of A I held for today that we do have to do a fresh y air. Held the full all hell episodes sometime soon. I got so much that we haven't gotten to.

P, yeah, all right. Let me get back to the other winter that I need. Okay, that's actually for this week, Adrian volie s as an organizer, a former educator and a research fellow for the distributed AI research institute. Thank you so much for doing a.

and I thank you. This was fine.

Yeah, thank you. That's IT for this week. Our theme soup is by toby men, and graphic is designed by miami pleasure, part production by Christy Taylor.

And thanks, as always, to the distributed AI research institute. If you like this show, you can support us by reading and reviewing us on apple podcast and spotify and by donating to at there. And that's D A I R. hybrid.

Find us in all our past episodes on peer tube. And wherever you get your podcast, you can watch and comment on the show where's happening live on our twitch stream. That's twitched that TV slashed their underscore institute again, that's D A, I R. Under for institute. I am .

Emily amended.