TL;DR: Public discourse tends to treat generative AI (genAI) as a monolithic threat to be managed through avoidance or bans. Here, I use the concept of affordances to argue that these tools have already fundamentally transformed the environments in which students live and learn, making “opting out” an impossibility. The path forward lies in integrating genAI as an essential component of modern education, empowering teachers to lead the development of critical AI literacy and preparing youth to leverage the evolving capabilities of these tools to do more and to do better.
This weekend I attempted to watch Jake Tapper’s State of the Union on CNN. I have to admit that I didn’t make it all the way through. Not because the topic was unimportant, quite the opposite. It was because the discussion itself was so conceptually muddled that it was difficult to take it seriously. However, I have read the transcript of the entire episode since it was aired.
The episode focused on artificial intelligence, particularly in relation to children and young people. Questions about AI and learning featured prominently, and it was this that caught my attention because it connects with the primary focus of my research at the moment (especially AI literacy). What followed, however, was a discussion that exemplifies many of the core problems in today’s public discourse on AI.
There were two issues that particularly frustrated me:
- Conceptual ambiguity – Tapper and his guests repeatedly referred to “AI” when they were obviously talking almost exclusively about generative AI (genAI), and more specifically conversational chatbots such as ChatGPT. What applies to genAI does not automatically apply to AI as a whole.
- Policy responses that amount to avoidance – The recommendations that guests offered in response to perceived risks associated with genAI largely boiled down to restricting access, banning use in schools or delaying engagement altogether, in the apparent hope that the problems might somehow crawl into a dark corner until they automagically resolve themselves.
In what follows, I want to unpack these two issues in some detail. While my critique is prompted by this specific episode of State of the Union, it is not directed at the program alone. Rather, it reflects my broader concerns about how the rapid development and diffusion of AI, and genAI in particular, is currently discussed in public, political and educational contexts. In my view, much of this discourse is not only superficial but actively misinformed. Continue reading →