Tag Archives: ChatGPT

Where is the wisdom in AI?⤴

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Hello dear reader, it’s been a while.  Over the past year I have been finding it harder to write  as regularly as I used to for this blog.  Or perhaps it’s actually that I am finding it hard to focus on what to write, and so half formed ideas in my head never quite make it to the draft then “publish on the blog” stage. 

It’s not that I am not writing. I am writing lots of different “things” for work.  Like everyone else I’ve been experimenting with ChatGPT as a writing aide.  I’ve found it slightly discombulating watching “the beast” devour my text almost instantaneously represent it.  To be honest, what it has given back has been ok, more than OK in some cases. The results have also caused a few wry smiles, as I suddenly see all too clearly  the homogeneity of language it perpetuates.

This post isn’t about the using GenAI.  Thankfully there are many far more qualified people doing that. I rely on them to help my understanding of the challenges and opportunities GenAI is creating.  I have to give a special mention to Helen Beetham’s amazing Imperfect Offerings substack (I aspire to that level of imperfection in my writing! ).

But to the point of this post.  I was listening to Elif Shafak talking about story telling on the Great Women Artists podcast the other day.  Shafak is a very wise woman, that’s what makes her writing so good.  During the interview the conversation got around to information, knowledge and wisdom.  She was reflecting on how there was a presumption that with “t’internet” (my word, not hers!) there was a presumption that we would all have access to information, and so knowledge would be more fairly distributed and democracy would spread and develop. As we all know that hasn’t happened.  But access to information is still critical. The neo-liberal politics of silicon valley are still driven by the control of access to information.

GenAI provides a way to access information in an apparently efficient and most importantly speedy way. No need for anyone to write anyone, because ChatGPT and its ilk can do that for us now.  It will “help” us produce the information and by default the knowledge the world needs. But, and this was the bit that really struck me in the interview, what about wisdom? There doesn’t seem to be time now to value the time that it takes to develop wisdom. To understand, critique, ponder information and create our own personal corpus of knowledge which we can share. 

There is a lot of noise in society in general about the ethics involved in AI, but again the “need for speed” to get products “out there” wins over taking time to think how wise these early releases  with their biases are.  The men at the top (and sadly it still pretty much is men) who share their “profound” statements about AI doing everything for us, are in my mind, not wise. The do not have wisdom. They do not value wisdom. They don’t have the time for that. They want to provide seemingly simple and speedy answers to “everything”.

Where is the space for wisdom around AI in education?  The sector is reacting incredibly quickly in terms of policies particularly around assessment.  There is a lot of collective wisdom around how to avoid students “just getting ChatGPT to write their essays” and using GenAI in more considered ways.  But what about the AI learning design tools that are popping up?  Are they wise? Where are they getting their ideas and information from? Where is the wisdom in increasing homogeneity of courses?  Or does the economic “wisdom” of cutting back on expensive human resource (aka teachers) take precedent?

Education should always evolve in  parallel with society.  But if information is so readily available now, shouldn’t we be thinking more of how we develop and value wisdom? Could we (re)develop society so that people can once again have informed, rational discussion and debate, where we understand and appreciate the ambiguities of society, where polarisation of opinion isn’t used as a tool for personal, political and monetary gain?

Who knows, maybe I should try one of those AI learning design tools to develop course around wisdom . . .

Did a (cc) search on google images for “wisdom” . . . lot to ponder there too. . .

The Wind. A Song by ChatGPT⤴

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Windy
“Windy” flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Today’s Daily Create asks:

What does the wind say to you today? Does it whisper softly in your ear, or shout right into your face? Write a song about the wind. Bonus points for singing it to us.

I turned to ChatGPT and asked it to:

write a song with 4 verses and a chorus on the subject of the wind. In the first verse the wind whispers, in the second verse it shouts. Here

(Verse 1)
In the quiet of the morning, when the world’s asleep,
The wind begins to whisper, secrets that it keeps.
It rustles through the leaves, a gentle, soothing sound,
A lullaby of nature, as it dances all around.

(Chorus)
Oh, the wind, it’s a storyteller, in its own sweet way,
Whispering through the treetops, at the break of day.
With a melody of secrets, in every gentle hush,
The wind, it sings of love, in a soft and tender rush.

(Verse 2)
But as the day unfolds, the wind gains strength and might,
It howls like a wolf, in the moon’s silver light.
Shouting through the canyons, a voice both wild and free,
A force of nature’s power, for all the world to see.

(Chorus)
Oh, the wind, it’s a storyteller, in its own fierce way,
Shouting through the mountains, as night turns into day.
With a thunderous declaration, in every roaring gust,
The wind, it cries of freedom, in a tempest’s fiery trust.

(Verse 3)
It can carry dreams on its back, to places far and wide,
Lifting hopes and wishes, on an endless, swirling ride.
Or it can bring a storm, with its rage and its disdain,
A reminder of the forces that nature can’t restrain.

(Chorus)
Oh, the wind, it’s a storyteller, in its own special way,
Carrying our desires, as it sweeps us far astray.
With a fickle disposition, in every twist and turn,
The wind, it weaves our tales, as the seasons change and churn.

(Verse 4)
In the end, the wind’s a friend, though it may seem aloof,
It whispers, it shouts, it’s gentle, it’s uncouth.
A reminder of the mysteries of nature’s grand design,
In every twist and turn, the wind tells stories so divine.

(Chorus)
Oh, the wind, it’s a storyteller, in its own mystic way,
Guiding us through life’s journey, as we go day by day.
With a timeless wisdom, in every breath it sends,
The wind, it tells our story, in a love that never ends.

Then I searched around for a text to song app and found VoiceMod. Here’s what it produced from the first verse of the song.

A Haiku for ETMooc2⤴

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Writers block
“Writers block” flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Sitting on a Sunday afternoon, wondering what to do that is vaguely ETMooc2 related, I open up Chat GPT and ask it to write me a haiku about writer’s block. Then, inspired by Kevin’s blog post, I put the haiku into NightCafe and ask it to generate four images for me. I jump over to PowerPoint to add the words to the images, and upload the result to Flickr.

Then I opened up AI Test kitchen and put the prompt into that to generate some music, upload that to SoundCloud, grab the url and embed it here. All this only takes a few minutes, though I stopped to make a cuppa along the way.

I’m enjoying these experiments with ChatGPT – the difficult thing is to work out a good prompt for the AI to respond to.

My short and long “must reads” around ChatGPT and LLM⤴

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Undoubtedly LLM (large language models), and in particular ChatGPT, is the hot topic in education right now. David Hopkins has helpfully started and shared a flipgrid where he is sharing articles around generative AI, and I know many others are doing the same. Amongst the hype there are thankfully a growing body of people who are writing informed critiques. In this post I just want to quickly highlight a couple of publications that I think are a must read.

Firstly the UNESCO Quick Start Guide to ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence. This is provides a really good overview of issues including a useful flow chart to help decisions around using ChatGPT, applications for education and some of the current issues. I suspect this will become a “go to” resource. It’s something that all educators should read.

And once they’ve done that then I have to recommend 2 longer pieces by Helen Beetham. Firstly, “on language, language models and writing“. In this essay, Helen really gets to grips with a key issue that is missing in many of the articles about LLM and ChatGPT, that is what is the purpose of writing? Why do we do it? It’s not just about structuring of text, personal reading. I think most people (well at least you, dear reader) does now understand that these language models work on prediction, and have no sense of context. So although the text may read well, it will often lack purpose and understanding. As Helen points out ” Writing by human writers is not only about the world, it is of the world and accountable in it.”

She goes on to explore some of the potential benefits of using systems such as ChatGPT. Can they be seen as writing partners? We supply the prompts, they supply the text . . ? I was struck by this.

“The illusion that these are more than tools or interfaces – that they are our partners in language, our interlocutors. We already spend large parts of our lives engaged in vivid graphical and sensory illusions. We should count the costs and benefits before rushing into a life of dialogue with illusory others”

And this

“Students see writing as a diverse, messy, inexact, variously motivated practice they are developing for themselves. Then perhaps they can aspire to be a writer among writers, and not a human version of ChatGPT.

I thank Helen for being the writer she is to have come up with that last turn of phrase. And then she goes on to point out:

But tools are not neutral. Just as language is not ‘simply’ the words we use to express our meanings to other people, tools are not ‘simply’ the means we use for exercising our personal intentions in the world. Tools carry the history of how they were designed and made. They shape practices and contexts and possible futures. . . With so many other tools we can use creatively, we must surely weigh the risks against the creative possibilities.”

In terms of education Helen also raises some really valid points for strategic leadership in universities. It does seem an awful lot of responsibility is being heaped on students, maybe we need to be asking these questions

“While students are held stringently to account for their use of LLMs, how will universities account to students for their own use of these systems? Can they hold out against black-box capabilities being embedded into the platforms they have come to depend on? Who is assessing the risks, and how are those risk assessments and mitigations being shared with the people most affected? These are questions that universities should be attending to with at least as much energy as they are policing students’ use of apps.”

There is also an accompanying piece students assignments in a time of language modelling. Again this is a really thoughtful (and pragmatic) piece about why, how and when to use writing tasks in assessments.

I would thoroughly recommend reading both essays, and engaging with Helen’s writing over on substack.


A To Do List⤴

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A creative prompt
“A creative prompt” flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license (Made with Night Cafe)

Today’s Daily Create asks us to write a to do list. I asked ChatGPT for inspiration

Can you write me a bullet pointed to do list for a person who needs to be motivated for a creative task

Sure, here’s a bullet-pointed to-do list for motivating yourself for a creative task:

  1. Start with a clear goal: Define the end result you want to achieve with your creative task. Having a specific and achievable goal in mind can motivate you to get started.
  2. Break the task into smaller, manageable parts: A large, overwhelming task can make you feel unmotivated. Break it down into smaller, more manageable parts, and focus on one part at a time.
  3. Find inspiration: Look for inspiration in other creative works or find ways to connect your creative task to your personal interests and passions.
  4. Create a supportive environment: Make sure you have a comfortable and inspiring work environment, with the necessary tools and resources to complete the task.
  5. Set deadlines: Set realistic deadlines for completing each part of the task. This can help you stay motivated and focused.
  6. Celebrate small victories: Celebrate each small accomplishment along the way. This can give you the motivation to keep going and help you stay positive.
  7. Take breaks: Taking breaks can help you recharge and come back to the task with fresh energy and creativity.
  8. Stay accountable: Share your goals and progress with someone else, such as a friend, family member, or mentor. This can help you stay accountable and motivated to complete the task.
  9. Reward yourself: After completing the task, reward yourself with something you enjoy. This can help you associate the task with positive feelings and motivate you for future creative tasks.

evidence-led innovation⤴

from @ wwwd – John's World Wide Wall Display

Ollie Brae’s tweet, leads to Game Over for Maths A-level — Conrad Wolfram

The combination of ChatGPT with its Wolfram plug-in just scored 96% in a UK Maths A-level paper, the exam taken at the end of school, as a crucial metric for university entrance. (That compares to 43% for ChatGPT alone).

Wrong conclusion: ban it. Right conclusion: change what humans are learning so they step up a level, and don’t compete with what AIs do well.

Wolfram goes on to explain that an overhaul of the math curriculum is long overdue, and quotes himself from 3 years ago:

Today’s ecosystem of education doesn’t easily support such subject change. From assessments tied to today’s subjects, to too short a time horizon, to evidence-led innovation rather than innovation-led evidence, there’s everything to prevent core subject change and seemingly nothing to promote it. Except, eventually, after much disarray, cold, hard failure.

My hi-light. Seeing “evidence-led innovation” as part of the problem was interesting.

wwwd – John's World Wide Wall Display 2023-01-27 20:15:23⤴

from @ wwwd – John's World Wide Wall Display

Liked One More Reason #ChatGPT Seems Like a Sweetheart by Maha BaliMaha Bali (blog.mahabali.me)

This ChatGPT thing, quite apart from all the other AI writing tools, is disturbingly addictive and… likeable? I had tried before with you.com/chat to make it say mean and biased things, but it wouldn’t. And this surprised me because if it trained on internet data, the internet is full of stuff like that, right? So…

An interesting experience with chatGPT.

Who trained you to be so sensitive and polite and politically correct?

I couldn’t be angry with it, because it was such a sweetheart about not giving me what I wanted.

ChatGPT for Lazy Teachers⤴

from @ wwwd – John's World Wide Wall Display

ChatGPT discussion screenshot. Text in blog post.

I’ve read a bit about ChatGPT use in education, there is a lot about 1

I’ve been kicking the tyres of ChatGPT a little. Even on the surface it is quite interesting.

I have tried a couple of things that might be useful. One is to get some JavaScript functions for a little fun. It did what I wanted. The other was perhaps more pertinent to teaching.

I wanted to knock out a couple of simple cloze procedures, making up sentences is one of the more tedious tasks so I though I’d give ChatGPT a shot. I asked:

Me: can you give me sentences for 10 year old using each of these words feat
feet
mail
male
leak
leek
meat
meet

ChatGPT: Sure! Here are some sentences using each of these words:

"I am so proud of my little sister's feat of climbing to the top of the jungle gym all by herself!"
"I can't believe how big my feet have gotten since I was a baby."
"I need to go to the post office to mail this letter to my pen pal in France."
"My uncle is a male doctor."
"There's a small leak in the roof that needs to be fixed before it starts raining."
"I love adding sliced leek to my salads for a little extra flavor."
"I can't wait to have a barbecue and cook some juicy meat on the grill."
"I have to go meet my friend at the library in an hour."

So I needed to fix the spelling of flavor and asked, with typo,  as in the screenshot,  for another sentence for male. I got a list. I needed to adjust the one I chose to make the lion lazy too.

It was easy enough to paste that into an H5P Fill in the Blanks Content and get a cloze in Glow Blogs.

Diversion to Other Geeky Territory

The Fill in the missing blanks content in H5P takes text with the words you want to be blank surrounded by asterisks. Since I’d copied the sentences into a text editor to replace the quotations, I set the document format to markdown, selected the words and pressed ⌘-i.

Markdown Text Edit Italic animation

I then wondered if I could get ChatGPT to add the asterisks for me, so I asked: with an asterisk before and after each word. This it did, but as it typed then it seems that ChatGPT uses markdown, so as it typed the closing astrisk the enclosed word became italic. So back TextMate for me.

  1. ChatGPT & Education – Google Slides and Some ill-formed thoughts about AI, robot colleagues, resistance, refusal. are both interesting. ↩