AI is dangerous. This isn’t fear-mongering, nor is it me cursing new technology I don’t understand, it’s a fact. AI was released to the public with zero regulation and since then the public has abused it to spread misinformation, create non-consensual sexualized images, and deface people’s reputations (all of which we discussed in class today). To me, even one instance of a woman having fake pornography made of her is enough to say there is no moral reason for AI to be released to the public. Because why do we need it? So lazy people can create creepy AI generated “art”? So we can write AI emails to each other and never speak using our own words? Personally, I’m not so desperate to hand my life over to spare a couple of minutes.

That may sound dramatic, “hand my life over”, but honestly, why are we avoiding the time and struggle it takes to be a person? What’s the rush? Yes, writing emails is boring, I also read my email a million times before clicking send. It can be tedious and stressful and I’m probably not writing the most grammatically optimized emails, however, the people receiving my emails can know they are talking to me. Just like you know that this post is entirely written in my own voice, messy as that may be.

Recently Instagram introduced a new feature you may have seen: when you type a message to DM someone a pencil with sparkles appears, offering to optimize your message. This feels insulting. I promise I do not need AI to help me message my friends nor would I appreciate it if my friends only replied to my messages with AI. If the purpose of AI is to save the public from doing hard or tedious work so we can spend time with our families or making art, then why is AI offering to help me spend less time making art or chatting with my friends? I, believe it or not, enjoy messaging my friends, and do not need AI to make my messages sound better. I watched a Drew Gooden video over the holidays that better encapsulates my ideas so I will link that here. If you don’t understand where I’m coming from I suggest you watch as he makes some great points and is significantly funnier than me.

I don’t find it inspiring that teachers can use AI to generate images instead of finding some from a photographer or making them themselves. I don’t think it’s cool that we can forego the creative process and have AI create ideas for us. Part of art is coming up with ideas. Creativity is a muscle, a skill that needs to be exercised lest it atrophy. Sure it may take you a moment longer to come up with a witty title or neat hook for your latest paper, but if you don’t take the time to think of these things you deny yourself the opportunity to grow.

On this topic, I have linked another fantastic Drew Gooden video. The whole video is amazing, but if you only have a small amount of time at least watch the end (starting at 29:45).

In class this week we were presented with the four Cs of integrating AI into digital literacy: critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. Unsurprisingly, I only agree with one C: critical thinking. Critical thinking is vital when it comes to dealing with AI. This tool is marketed to be a magical software but we know it is far from that. It is not infallible. AI makes mistakes which leads to the spread of misinformation. Like it or not this technology is here and is available to children; they need to be capable of recognizing where AI is used and when it is presenting incorrect or biased information. Schools can help teach students the critical thinking skills they need to engage with all sorts of media on the internet, be it news media or entertainment. Hopefully, AI is included in that so students can navigate it as it becomes more common.

However, there is no reason children (or anyone for that matter) should be using AI to help them be creative, communicate, or collaborate. These are all skills that we as humans learn through action, simple trial and error. Handing them over to AI will bar students from developing these skills independently.

Creativity is one in particular I hate to see being passed to AI. As teachers, we have the opportunity to show students how they can pull from their own personal experiences to create ideas. They can get story ideas from their weekend or invent a story of what it would be like to be a bug living in their backyard. They can get reference images from books they like around the classroom or sit in the field and try and draw the school. They can talk to their friends about the characters they’re making and brainstorm new inventions. None of this needs AI. Making ideas is fun! Kids love to be creative and handing that privilege over to AI not only robs them of their ability to grow that skill but also takes away their opportunity to tell stories about the world as they see it.

Communication and collaboration are equally unnecessary. Communication is only valuable if you first believe being able to effectively interact with AI is valuable, which I do not. As I have said, I see no reason the average person should need to use AI. We have brains in our heads that are dying to be used and the last place we should be skipping that exercise is school. Collaboration is silly as well. We don’t need AI to facilitate collaboration and there are significantly better topics to explore if we want to have students work in groups. I honestly don’t understand the point of either communication or collaboration in the four Cs which makes it slightly difficult to argue against. Just talk to each other? AI isn’t elevating either of these categories and for creativity, it is just giving a shortcut. We can do better than that for our students.

This is a tangent, but one I knew I would probably travel down at some point in these reflections. Today feels as good a day for it as any. I’m no expert on AI, nor an expert on technology in general, but I was born in 2002, I got my first Instagram account at 11 but before that was messaging strangers on Kik. I’m very lucky I never felt unsafe online, but many people my age are not so lucky. Many experienced harassment, cyberbullying, grooming and all other sorts of horror stories. Social media, when I was a kid, lacked the regulation it needed to protect kids from dangerous actors online and it took time to improve this. It is still improving. Now, many years later, kids can communicate with each other through things like Kids Messenger, an app created to give children a safe space online apart from social media. I worry that we are not yet there with AI. The regulation has not come yet and though maybe in two decades it will be much safer, how many people will suffer along that journey? I don’t think AI-generating ideas we could have had on our own should we put in a modicum of effort is worth the pain AI has already caused. As I said: even one woman having fake porn made of her is too much for me to justify it. One kid using it to bully a classmate or incriminate a teacher is too many. Not to mention (and I would mention if I had more time) the carbon emission released with each search query.

Maybe I’m an old man yelling at clouds. But I can accept that. I’ll be wary of new technology and hang out behind the curve if it means I can save a few more years doing the living work myself. To be clear I don’t think using AI is villainous or that you should feel bad for doing so, but I do think it’s a disservice to yourself. We can all be mindful with our use of AI. We can all ask ourselves: is AI really worth it?