December 23, 2022: Kevin Brown wrote: Former Google chairman Eric Schmidt claimed that by giving Google greater access to your personal information, the popular search engine can “make you smarter.” But can Google or any other adaptive AI technology make you better? More empathic? Selfless? Virtuous?
Knowledge is not enough to constitute wisdom, judgment, prudence, and moral excellence. One can be, to use an expression once used by the playwright Molière, a “learned fool.” Or as Walker Percy reminded us, you can make straight A’s and “flunk ordinary living.”
For this reason, Stanford University professor Rick Reis said educators should aim for “productive discomfort”—creating fear in students because they “either cannot articulate … the values that guide their lives, or that their values and beliefs do not withstand scrutiny.”
To this last point, a holistic, unitive education says something about the teachers who provide it. As most can attest, impactful teachers are not simply intelligent, credentialed communicators who can effectively convey a concept or teach a skill—they are more. Good teachers care and show interest in their students, name their potential, broaden their imaginative horizons, and inspire them.
In other words, AI is a good servant, but it is a poor master.
Knowledge is not enough to constitute wisdom, judgment, prudence, and moral excellence. One can be, to use an expression once used by the playwright Molière, a “learned fool.” Or as Walker Percy reminded us, you can make straight A’s and “flunk ordinary living.”
For this reason, Stanford University professor Rick Reis said educators should aim for “productive discomfort”—creating fear in students because they “either cannot articulate … the values that guide their lives, or that their values and beliefs do not withstand scrutiny.”
To this last point, a holistic, unitive education says something about the teachers who provide it. As most can attest, impactful teachers are not simply intelligent, credentialed communicators who can effectively convey a concept or teach a skill—they are more. Good teachers care and show interest in their students, name their potential, broaden their imaginative horizons, and inspire them.
In other words, AI is a good servant, but it is a poor master.