Pass or Fail?

 

Pass or fail. Where do you fall on the F to A+ spectrum? The impression on us as kids in school was not nearly as much about skill mastery as it was about our “smartness” or “dumbness” compared to classmates.”  

Some of us failed because we were attention-deficient or lazy, or both; you can’t regurgitate what you never swallowed. Some failed because nature had never endowed them with the basics for understanding concepts deemed “normal.” Some had far more pressing anxieties and struggles than homework. Others lacked encouragement and assistance from home and opted out with their first disappointment.

But come year-end, we deemed it critical that our report card judged us to have passed. Copying another’s answers, sneaking information into the test room and later, plagiarizing the work of others were strategies to help that happen… without doing the work for some; without the ability to do what was required for others. How neatly standardized tests, report cards and pass or fail pronouncements split our emotional and reasoning worlds apart!

I just read two startling stories about AI technology that seeks to make work and worry obsolete, while freeing us up to play video games and spread misinformation 24/7. Russia and America favour releasing AI from human approval for military deployment. AI could immediately fire ballistic missiles at Baghdad, say, if it detected a threat from there through its data exchanges.

And, the education arm of a provincial government in Canada sought AI assistance with only small formatting issues, but in the completed treatise on improving education, “AI hallucination” appears to have crept in and created false references in support of valid arguments. I fed a university level essay topic into an AI engine a while ago and it provided me with a more-than-passable essay… two minutes later. Such a corner-cutting in the real world seems monstrous… until you consider that the prof probably sent in a copy of his curriculum and had AI make up the test!

We may survive AI, but not as thinking, feeling, creative, loving humans. The handwriting is on the wall screen. On what basis will today’s and tomorrow’s children pass or fail?