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At least once a week my jaw involuntarily drops at some bit of AI-related news as I read about something that is almost certainly not a good idea that has nonetheless been done.
This week’s disbelief comes from Harvard University where OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was on hand to receive something called the “Experiment Cup,” which is awarded by a venture capital firm whose mission is to “back entrepreneurs who think laterally and experiment across disciplines.” I’m not entirely clear on what that means or how Altman fits the criteria, but my guess is that it’s basically an excuse to flatter someone in power by giving them an award.
It’s not clear from The Harvard Gazette coverage from where I’m drawing my information if the Experiment Cup involves the awarding of an actual trophy, but that would be cool.
My disbelief is not in that Harvard University, an institution endowed with billions of dollars, was hosting a billionaire to talk about stuff, so much as that it appears as though the audience was prepared to take Altman seriously on issues of the use of generative AI in education.
To my knowledge, Altman’s résumé shows no experience in education of any kind. Like much of the rest of our billionaire tech titan class, he never graduated college—choosing instead to leave to become the founder of a company that produced an app that no longer exists, but somehow still managed to make him wealthy. This led to additional jobs that made him wealthier still, and so on and so on.
Altman told The Gazette a number of things:
“Cheating on homework is obviously bad. But what we mean by cheating and what the expected rules are does change over time.”
Altman called ChatGPT a “calculator for words” and characterized some of the responses to ChatGPT as being similar to those that greeted the arrival of the calculator. “People said, ‘We’ve got to ban these because people will just cheat on their homework.’ If people don’t need to calculate a sine function by hand again … then mathematical education is over.”
Altman also said, “Standards are just going to have to evolve. Writing a paper the old-fashioned way is not going to be the thing. Using the tool to best discover and express, to communicate ideas, I think that’s where things are going to go in the future.”
And …
“Telling people not to use ChatGPT is not preparing people for the world of the future.”
Most of this stuff is just not helpful. Like what is the “old-fashioned way” of writing a paper? How does the tool help us “discover” ideas? Why would people not using ChatGPT not be preparing them for the future? ChatGPT never existed until 18 months ago and people seem to be using it just fine.
All of these questions go begging because when it comes down to it, Altman is not particularly thoughtful, or one assumes knowledgeable about the real-world implications of this technology as applied to education.
It is important to see Altman for what he is: a shill, a hype-man, for his product. This is a man who just asked for $7 trillion in order to develop the computing power that will allow his company to achieve AGI, artificial general intelligence. That’s more money than the annual GDPs of Germany and England combined.
It is seven times more than the annual collective spending on all of U.S. education. This is the ask of a fanatic who thinks he may be at the forefront of developing a godlike superintelligence, not someone who cares about what happens in educational institutions.
It is truly bizarre how institutions that are absolutely loaded with subject matter experts would instead turn to a college dropout tech CEO with a messianic vision for his company’s product for advice.
I’m confident Harvard has an office of academic integrity. I know they have a highly regarded program in academic writing. These are the people they should be speaking and listening to. IF they’re busy, I’m easy to find.
Maybe they are doing that, and I’m wringing my hands over a glorified photo op, but given the thoughtlessness with which some institutions are turning to gen AI, and their apparent embrace of Altman’s frame of inevitability, a guy has to wonder.
And worry.
