Yoshimi, Thamus, and Generative AI
An Article by Steven J. Bourgeois
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During the past couple of years, I have had AI on my mind for far too many minutes each day. To describe my current state of trepidation, I cite a wonderful little song called “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1” by an American psychedelic rock band, The Flaming Lips (2002):
Her name is Yoshimi
She's a black belt in karate
Working for the city
She has to discipline her body
'Cause she knows that
It's demanding
To defeat those evil machines
I know she can beat them
Oh, Yoshimi, they don't believe me
But you won't let those robots eat me
Yoshimi, they don't believe me
But you won't let those robots defeat me
(My italics and highlighting)
I share the sentiment that I hope the robots won’t eat me. My concern is not a form of physical carnage, at least not until the dog drones become guardians of humanity. No, my primary anxiety has to do with how I keep Ahart Solutions, my educational research firm, at least two steps ahead of the robots. My secondary concern, which has more universal application, is that what we now think of as schooling will be replaced by something of another sort.
Below, I reformulate an argument by one of my favorite authors, Neil Postman, from his 1992 book Technopoly. Postman references a passage from Plato’s Phaedrus where the god Theuth articulates the value of several of his inventions to the Egyptian King Thamus, including number, calculation, geometry, astronomy, and writing. With respect to writing, Socrates narrates:
Theuth declared, ‘Here is an accomplishment, my lord the King, which will improve both the wisdom and the memory of the Egyptians. I have discovered a sure receipt for memory and wisdom.” To this, Thamus replied, “Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it. So it is in this; you, who are the father of writing, have out of fondness for your off-spring attributed to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources. What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it without the reality: they will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society.’
Socrates unveiled the Judgment of Thamus to argue against writing in favor of the oral tradition. The same case could be made to expose some of the unintended consequences of the printing press. Postman presented the words of Socrates to clarify the dangers of television and the computer to schooling. Another prophet of 20th century media, Marshall McCluhan (1967), indicated that “all media work us over completely.” Thus, a shift from the book to the screen initiates a media war where both old and new compete for attention and hegemony.
With respect to the current media war, I wonder how the argument outlined above translates to our current menace, generative AI. Following McCluhan’s aphorism, AI would affect every aspect of human endeavor, including education. Since my frame of reference is education in general and schooling specifically, I will translate the argument of Socrates to the potential effects of AI on schooling. I structure my argument based on five elements of the Judgement of Thamus:
1. The discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it.
Mindful that the the developers of generative AI, such as Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and others have deep technical understanding of their new tools, they are also motivated by market forces and have a primary interest in monetizing their invention. Calling AI something like a modest large language model in no way captures the disruptive and potentially transformative nature of their product. I recommend taking a circumspect view toward the claims of these media moguls of the 21st century, who may be too vested in the outcome to assess both the potential good and harm of their invention. Also, we must assume that generative AI is currently in its infancy, just raising its head to view the surface of our little world, long before that “rough beast . . . slouches towards Bethlehem” (Yeats, p. 260, 1989)
2. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources.
I recall the words of one of my students a decade and a half ago while teaching German and music at a STEM high school. Somehow, the idea came up that the student might be asked to NOT bring his laptop to school one day. The student at first seemed concerned, then dumbfounded, and responded: “Why would I leave my brain at home?” Looking back, 2008 was a simpler, halcyon time; and a laptop was a much simpler tool than generative AI. Today, that student would have ChatGPT-4 ready-to-hand on his cell phone, and he would literally hold his brain in his hand. After a three second search, he could receive an in depth, albeit superficial, answer to most of his pressing questions. However, how many of those AI generated answers would stick? Would he need to return to those queries or prompts incessantly, or would the accessibility of the phone trump the need to engage the memory?
In one of my previous published works, a book written with my colleague, Ross Miller, we provide an an image of acquired knowledge that did not require digital prompting:
Imagine listing the areas of your greatest expertise—areas where you have developed deep understanding over many years. These areas of knowledge should always be at your fingertips; that is, you should be able to recite extensive detail without notes. For example, Mr. Miller might list 20th century European history, 19th-20th century East Asian history, US history, political systems, economic theory, 20th century detective fiction, and baseball history. Dr. Bourgeois might list continental philosophy, German literature, European art history, qualitative research methods, statistical methods, classical music history, and jazz music theory. We could hold court in any of those categories, providing historical content along well articulated opinions on current issues in the respective fields—no need for digital sources or note cards. Rather, we could both go into excruciating detail on our most cherished subjects that represent the culmination of our combined research and experience.
Such a description of acquired knowledge may sound out of touch in the current context of immediate virtual resources, amplified dramatically by the AI bot. To put a finer point on it, my conception of a well-educated individual is their ability to hold court with me over a 90-minute dinner and entertain me with their wit and breadth of knowledge.
3. What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it without the reality.
Memory has to do with acquiring, storing, retaining, and retrieving information. However, there is another function that should also make the list: connecting old knowledge with new contexts. The revised definition allows for creative adaptation of previous learning, something that employers, colleagues, professors, and friends would value. Such a store of knowledge and association allows for deep reading, deep writing, and deep conversation. We have all seen scores of PowerPoint and Slide presentations where the presenter dazzles us with images, flying text, pithy quotes, and bullet points to jog their memory and get them through the ordeal. Imagine turning off the projector or shutting off the screen share function. To what extent would the presenter be able to function without the digital crutch? Many keynote speakers have the reputation of wisdom. However, to what extent can they stand up to questioning? Do they answer the questions authentically or fall back on their rehearsed answers? Generative AI could be viewed as a formidable crutch, making it difficult to distinguish the wise from the technologically adept.
4. They will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.
As educators, we would like to think that proper instruction is behind any deep knowledge. Confronted with generative AI and the increasingly fluent writing of the chatbot, teachers and professors must come up with alternative ways to assess. Plagiarism is never as simple as educators think. Students do not blatantly ask the bot to write a fully formed essay, complete with cover pages, tables of contents, references, and acknowledgements. Nonetheless, students still avail themselves of the new tools of research. In just a few seconds, students can acquire a list of relevant sources, perfect APA 7 citations, and perfectly formed annotated bibliographies. Even more likely is the process of writing (human), editing (bot), and reworking (human), representing a strange form of back-translation and resulting in a well-scrubbed piece of submission-ready work. Unfortunately, the author’s voice, wit, and style are lost in translation.
With respect to assessment, the solutions do not necessarily lie in more technology. Imagine the absurdity of a student’s bot-written essay graded by a professor’s bot. Or even more strange, the idea of a bot determining the percentage of a student’s essay written by another bot. I wonder if the bots are in collusion, winking at each other with their ones and zeros throughout the absurd process. In any case, assessment will need to change. Simply put, we will need to dust off the old Blue Book and deploy the cumbersome but effective oral exam. I’m not sure who will complain loudest: the teachers, the students, or the parents? My rule for assessment has a name: The Bourgeois Theory of Assessment: There is an inverse relationship between the quality of an assessment and how easy that assessment is to grade. The messy, time-consuming methods of grading (Blue Book, oral exam) are the best. Anything with bubbles or completed at their home computer belongs in the other category.
5. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society.
Many private and charter schools have adopted the practice of referring to their students as scholars. I am not opposed to this practice since it communicates a level of respect, discipline, and seriousness that student or pupil cannot match. With the advent of generative AI, and all of the other digital tools of learning, the term scholar may become less appropriate. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a scholar is “a person who studies a subject in great detail, especially at a university” My worry is that even our more successful young scholars will leave their institutions of learning with superficial knowledge, along with some unsightly gaps. As teachers, professors, and educational leaders, we value intellectual integrity, intellectual diligence, and intellectual humility. Let us hope we are not releasing a generation of superficial know-it-all students who are a burden to society.
Looking ahead . . . In light of the evolution of generative AI, schools appear to be on a dangerous course, preparing students for the workplace but failing to equip them to think, hypothesize, dream, or create. My impression is that employers value individuals who can read, write, speak, learn, and even retool as technology presses onward. AI-empowered automation is a danger, particularly for those who work in data and perform repeated tasks. In fact, anyone currently working from home or in a cubicle should at some point very soon be looking over their shoulder. Schooling today has a new task: Provide students with lasting knowledge and the capacity to defend themselves against the robots. Repeat chorus (The Flaming Lips (2002):
Oh, Yoshimi, they don't believe me
But you won't let those robots eat me
Yoshimi, they don't believe me
But you won't let those robots defeat me
Steven J. Bourgeois, PhD is the CEO of Ahart Solutions, an educational research firm supporting schools of choice. He has been in public education for 25 years as a high school German teacher, head tennis coach, state testing coordinator, and director of research. He served as executive director for one of the largest charter organizations in the United States. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Dallas. He holds a B.A. in music, B.A. in German, and M.A. in German Literature, all from the University of Oregon. He obtained a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Bourgeois has a record of publication in peer-reviewed educational journals and presentations at state, regional, national, and international conferences in the areas of student motivation/engagement, transformational leadership, and collective teacher efficacy.