Towards a teaching without soul. This is how education could evolve if Artificial Generative Intelligence (GAI) continues to gain ground among students, who could lose their ability to be surprised, to be critical, creative and admire others if they use this technology without question.
That is one of the reflections that the French philosopher, Éric Sadin, made at the inauguration of the Academic Year of the PUCV School of Social Work, a meeting that included the participation of undergraduate and graduate students, academics from different academic units and the public. general who came to the Hall of Honor of the Central House to listen to the essayist, in a discipline that since its emergence has generated controversy, especially for its ability to create truths and influence people’s decision-making.
Sadin stressed that society is responsible for the world that those who will come after will inherit. “What are we going to do when our children ask us why they have to go to school if all the knowledge is there available and effortless?”
According to this philosopher, the IAG seeks to imitate human language, but as if it were a continuum and based on a mathematical analysis; but in real life it doesn’t work like that. “Language is not mathematics, when the person speaks they do not know what they are going to say next,” he highlighted, in reference to the ability of some applications to predict what the user wants to write in a chatFor example.
For Sadin, language is not correlation or utilitarian probabilities, language allows humans to make associations, choose words and ideas; but with the IAG that capacity is lost, which would go against the culture and biography of the people.
This new technology could determine our tastes, influence the acquisition of material goods and shape our opinion on different topics. People would thus be transformed into “biological robots”, which could affect the future of some service professions, which could be replaced by “technological robots”, the so-called super assistants. “Instead of going to the doctor, a machine could analyze me and prescribe me medication,” the philosopher highlighted.
And how to avoid this bleak future? Éric Sadin has no hope in the regulation of the IAG through national laws due to the great lobbying power that companies in the area have, however, he considers that an alternative is to mobilize societies to have a critical vision of this phenomenon. and are able to discern and understand that this system can lead to distrust, to not believing in the other because it will not be possible to distinguish between what is real and artificial.
Sadin called, especially on educational institutions and governments, to hold seminars and meetings to debate the IAG, to analyze the consequences and seek in an open and reflective dialogue the best way to confront its advance.
By Claudia Carvajal
School of Social Work
