My Personal Position on Learning & Community in the Face of AI

Regardless of how we feel about large language models in education and our everyday lives, this technology is already here and will only become more pervasive and powerful.

Original Content by Amos Fodchuk & Revised by the ALP Team

AI Revisions via Chat GPT-4 (Transcript)

Published by Advanced Learning Partnerships on LinkedIn

THE AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER ALLOW THIS CONTENT TO BE CAPTURED AND USED TO TRAIN?AI MODELS THAT ABIDE BY TRANSPARENT & ETHICAL STANDARDS THAT DO NOT YET EXIST.?

Like March 12, 2020 when I awoke to a completely new paradigm in my professional and personal worlds, January 14, 2023 stands as a historic date in my career as an education leader and entrepreneur. On that sunny, chilly North Carolina morning, I opened my email to find a Texas educator explaining how he outsourced his listserv content creation using a generative AI tool called Chat GPT.?

Mere months later, it is obvious to those with even a passing understanding of generative AI that we are once again imperfectly navigating a watershed period without a common language, coherent policy, guiding resources, or best practices.

As a society, profession, and industry, we simply must do better this time around.

My Personal Position on Large Language Models in Education

As I learn more about large language models (LLMs), I find it entirely possible and even likely that the impact of generative AI will be more intense and accelerated than anything we have experienced in past waves of technology infusion.?

Even if this observation proves to be inaccurate, it’s important to me that ALP moves transparently and ethically through this ‘wild west’ period. Tools like Chat GPT, Google Bard, DALL-E 2, and Claude are already colliding with student learning, curriculum design, instructional practice, and education leadership.?

A moratorium on the commercial use of generative AI is potentially advantageous but unlikely. Effective, early-phase policies may emerge from our elected officials and industry executives if we as citizens and consumers demand it.?

I believe that a modern form of democratic citizenship requires educators to better understand the current and future opportunities as well as the current and future risks of generative AI. Together, we must advocate for policies and model practices that center our humanity even in the face of a monumental and largely unchecked technological innovation. As professionals and community leaders, AI systems represent a powerful change force we either actively engage in or ignore.

Based on these beliefs, I’ve distilled three concrete position statements and aligned commitments to action:

As a society, profession, and industry, we must do better with the AI revolution than we have done with previous technological advances.?

I've spent the past 6 months investigating, experimenting, and discussing the opportunities and risks inherent with generative AI. As my colleagues and I work alongside K-12 education systems, I commit to sharing regular insights and practices that contribute to the purposeful implementation of these new tools. This post represents the start of this journey outlining my emerging perspective on how and why our profession must mobilize in a watershed moment.?

Regardless of how we feel about large language models in education and our everyday lives, this technology is already here and will only become more pervasive and powerful.?

That's why I commit to sharing regular insights and practices that contribute to the purposeful implementation of AI tools. Educators, parents, and community leaders harbor valid, concrete concerns around the opaqueness of LLMs as well as intellectual property and privacy rights. ALP has and continues to earn a privileged position in school systems that focus on systems-based change. It is critical that we synthesize the voices of all stakeholders and maintain transparency in our actions.

Together, we must advocate for enforceable policies, standards, and incentives to uphold intellectual property, confidentiality, and transparency rights that are essential to our democracy, economy, and society.

In this post kicking off a series outlining my emerging perspective of AI, I model authorship transparency. I believe these are the kind of ethical questions we must address and transparency in creation we must explore. At the top of this post, I provide my original draft content alongside the revisions from ChatGPT-4 as well as the final text polished by feedback from colleagues. I pledge to experiment with protocols that make visible my experiments and emerging practices across multiple mediums.

After you've engaged with my perspective, I encourage you to chime in with your own. Here's what I'd love to know from my network:

• What is your personal position on generative AI in education and learning?
• How can we leverage our respective platforms, networks, and skills to realize human-centric outcomes as a collective?
• How can we respectfully understand and accommodate the biases that each of us brings to this challenging work?

Thank you for considering and responding to my emerging thoughts on this challenging and complex topic. In my next post, I’ll share the Advanced Learning Partnerships' position on the integration of large language models in education systems through the lens of our long-standing values.