An Open Letter to My Students about AI - Episode 38
00:00:00 Jon Bergmann: Welcome to the Reach Every Student podcast. I'm your host, Jon Bergmann. Hey, today I want to actually this is a a podcast for students. So if you're going to hear this vicariously as I'm talking to my students, this is an open letter to my students about I. And I would like you, if you're a teacher, to potentially share this with your students. And these are some thoughts that I have about I written to my students. So let's listen in.
00:00:33 Jon Bergmann: Hey, students, Mr. Bergman here. What an exciting time to be young and on the cusp of adulthood. You've been born into a world full of opportunities and challenges. Over the past year and a half, I've been delving deeply into all things I. I am both concerned and optimistic about your future. My greatest hope is that you will thrive and flourish in the world that lies before you. Over the past few hundred years, historians have identified three industrial revolutions. A little history lesson, guys in the first Industrial Revolution was in the 1700s and 1800s. That was where they replaced manual labor with the power of steam engines. Factories were built. Cities became a thing or a bigger thing. The assembly line was invented. And then there was a second industrial revolution. The late 1800s. The early 1900s. This is where the widespread use of electricity was a key feature electricity enabled. It allowed people to scale manufacturing and introduce communication technologies such as the telephone. It was a huge, important era of the world. If you've studied history, these are not new things to you. And then what's called the third Industrial Revolution, which is the mid 1900s to the early 2000s. That was the invention of the computer and the internet. Each of these revolutions dramatically changed the world. Though each revolution brought many positive changes, they also caused significant human suffering. Many people believe that we are living in the fourth Industrial Revolution, with AI and biotech serving as the primary drivers. This area is happening more rapidly than previous revolutions and is already disrupted many lives. You are already using AI. I know that and it's changing the way you live. Andrew Ning, he's the founder of Coursera, also a Stanford researcher said the transformation of AI is similar to the second Industrial revolution from no electricity to electricity. You and me, we've never known a world without electricity. Unless Houston students. Unless you remember the deep freeze of 2021. or maybe one of the hurricanes, that have beset Houston. If you live through those events, you know how much we rely on electricity. Imagine the world before electricity. That world relied on manual labor, natural light, slow communication, limited mobility, and limited mobility. Those living during the advent electric age, though, were living in exciting time. Thomas Edison's electric light stunned the world. Before electric lights, you either clustered around a fire or had oil lamps with electric lights. People began to stay up after dark. I can't imagine a world where you just don't stay up till midnight. A lot of you. Electricity revolutionized industries, transformed where people live and even how homes were designed. And then there's this guy named Willis Carrier, and he invented the air conditioner. The world changed. Especially for us. Us? Yeah, especially for us in warmer climates. Houston's hot, humid climate made it unappealing when air conditioning became available, though, the population of Houston and other cities in the south dramatically increased. Electricity so utterly transform the world, you probably take it for granted. It's the most versatile form of energy ever invented. It keeps your homes, drives your car, runs your computer, cools your food, and powers the devices you own. Now, being a young person during the dawn of electricity must have been exciting. The world was transforming before your eyes. Opportunities abounded for those who embraced the change, and who found new and innovative ways to harness the power of electricity. You see each endeavor. Industrial evolution was marked by rapid change and each revolution. Many people struggled, though with the change. Factories were often unsafe. Some people have used child labour. Urbanisation created environments where disease spread rapidly. With every large scale social and technological revolution, there were winners and losers. The change hurt many people, yet many saw it as a great opportunity, opportunity to embrace the new change. And they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The AI era is already changing how you live. Many are embracing it wholeheartedly and see it as the best thing that's ever happened in their lives. Many others, though, are calling for caution, especially for young people such as yourselves. When Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost took the name Pope Leo the 11th. You know what he said? His concern was that the AI would pose challenges compared to those faced by the first industrial Revolution. He fears that AI will denigrate our humanity. I share his concerns.
00:05:31 Jon Bergmann: You're living in a time of significant change. How you prepare yourself for the future will make all the difference. Although the second industrial revolution occurred quickly, the pace of change was way slower than this AI revolution change in light of the crazy times we live in. How can you best prepare yourself for this new era? So I've got seven suggestions for you. So here's my Recommendations as you think about I for you as a student. In a recent study, this guy named Michael Gerlach concluded that here are the quote. The findings revealed a significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities. Mediated by increasing cognitive offloading. Younger participants exhibited higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical thinking scores compared to older adults. In other words, when students use AI to do their thinking, they become poorer thinkers. Or as I like to say, overreliance on AI will stupefy you, make you stupider. Ted Chiang was writing recently, and he said using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift to the weight room. You will never improve your cognitive fitness that way. Now, I know most of you are using AI for schoolwork, but I caution you, if your goal is to make something of yourself, you must do the hard work of learning. Many of your peers will take the path of least resistance. They will shortchange their learning and will not become the outstanding person they could become. Don't be that person. Instead, be like Moria Gleason. She's a 20 year old student at Hillsdale College, and this is what she said, quote, writing an undergraduate paper isn't about the actual paper. As an English major, I write to understand what I have read. Using AI to write a term paper for my Shakespeare class wouldn't only be dishonest, it would rob me of my education. The odds of my saying something novel about to be or not to be are about zero. And I know academia isn't hurting for the musings of a 20 year old student fueled by energy. Energy drinks in the library at 2 a.m.. I write not because anyone else needs to read my thoughts, but because I need to write them. Delivering a finished paper takes hours of reading, rereading, outlining, drafting, and editing. Even then, as one of my professors said, papers are never really finished. They are only due. Writing may be draining, never perfect, but it's always rewarding. Slaving over term papers every semester for three years has made me a more careful reader, insightful thinker, and articulate writer. When my professor grades my work, he judges the merit of my thought and engagement with the text. The page must reflect me then, not the output of a chat bot, guys. I'm a writer, and there's something about writing that you have to just do it to keep doing it over and over again. One of the reasons you came to our school was to become a leader. We develop leaders here, and it takes a great deal of willpower to resist the temptation to cut corners. As you know, I love science and I geek about about how the brain works when it's learning. So quick science lesson here. When you learn something new, actual structures in your brain grow and adapt. If you exercise your brain, your brain's muscles become more efficient, allowing you to process complex concepts more easily. In many ways, the brain is like a muscle that grows best when stressed. If you lift weights, you know that develop more muscle. You need to push yourself with either more reps or slightly higher weight than you can handle. In the educational context, this is often referred to as productive struggle. You learn best when you're struggling. When you're at the edge of your cognitive ability, when you push through the difficulty, that's when you see the most significant gains. This is when you have those aha moments. So my first recommendation is over. Reliance on AI will harm you. That's number one. I gave you seven. Number two you should still use AI. I'm not saying don't use AI. Hear me carefully. AI is a powerful tool that can change the world both positively and negatively. Scott Latham is a business professor at the Manning School of Business, and he recently wrote on LinkedIn that those students who used AI to do their rough draft and then tweaked the work afterwards showed significant declines in their performance. However, those students who put their own hard work in first and then utilized AI. Wow. The quality of the work was outstanding. In other words, you do the work first, then add. I don't let I do the first draft and then you tweak it. So this is a big idea guys. How should you use AI? I. You put your own original work and let it help you fine tune it. You've got to build those mental structures. That's the positive way to use AI. Another group of researchers found that when an expert uses AI, it amplifies their work and accelerates the tasks they can accomplish. However, when AI is used by a novice, it's too tempting for the novice to let I do the work, and the result is the novice learner doesn't get the benefit of actually learning. Regardless of what class you are taking at our school. You're likely seeing this material for the first time. And so I have news for you. You are a novice, so I will most likely do a better job of high school work than you can. I just saw recently I don't know which AI bot did this, but they just like aced the Math Olympiad. Like the smartest math kids in the world and it like, got a gold star or a gold medal. It was smarter than these kids. So AI is going to be better at math than you are. If I is going to be better at writing an essay than you are, I is going to be better at a lot of things than you are. But the point of school isn't for you to have excellent work that isn't yours. The point of school is that you build your brain. You're you're creating. You're getting those reps. So I want you to use I. And there are going to be great examples of how you can productively use it. And I don't even know if that's going to look like. but I want you to carefully consider the consequences of both the unintended and intended consequences of you using I as a student. So let's find ways to use it thoughtfully and ethically. And I think that's going to make a huge difference. So number one I'm saying don't over rely on AI. Number two I'm saying use AI but use it thoughtfully. Number three don't believe everything you see. That'll be short point here. A is not perfect. It makes mistakes and it's called hallucinations. It makes stuff up that isn't real. In New York, there's a team of lawyers. They use ChatGPT to write a portion of their legal brief. And then, ChatGPT cited some court cases to support the brief. Sounds great. Right? The problem was they didn't even exist. These court cases, they got caught. they, I don't think, got disbarred, but they got a lot of trouble. Anyways, so, I mean, and, you know, this, it's it's hard to believe a video is real anymore, right? Because I can create a deepfake video of almost anybody doing anything, saying anything the creator wants them to say. So I believe this is gonna be one of the biggest challenges you face. And so don't believe everything that you see read. So AI is not perfect. And yeah, be careful. and next point I would encourage you. I can't say this as strong as I can avoid the AI companion apps. These are things like, character, AI. These things are. They promise friendship and companionship, but they are poison. I, I can't say this as strongly. They are poison and they will hurt you. You have been put on this earth for real relationships. Relationships with flesh and blood. Humans. Like real people. Though, any boyfriend or girlfriend may always be attentive to you. They are not real, you know. Real relationships are messy. I've been married 35 years, and I have news for you. Sometimes Mrs. Burkman and I fight. Yes, we sometimes fight, and that's normal. But as you interact with your parents, your peers, your teachers, your community, you need to learn how to navigate the complexities of real relationships and I. Relationship is a counterfeit of the real thing. It may satisfy you in the short term, but you will miss out on the best thing. It's going to require work. Do not settle for the fake. It will stunt your relationships. It'll make you lonelier. It'll hurt you. Please. Please, please. I know the vast majority of you are starting to use these. I stop it, please. It would only hurt you. So number one was. If you call. I have seven things. Number one is over. Alliance will hurt you. But I want you to use it. Number two. Number three. Don't believe everything you see. Number four, avoid the AI companion apps. Number five, thoughtfully choose your college majors carefully. You know, during the age of electricity, many people lost their jobs because I replaced jobs. And it will replace many careers, ones that we have thought of highly. So I encourage you to carefully read about which professions will disappear, or at least diminish, in the years to come. Now, I don't have any specific majors in mind, but boy, do a deep dive about all the majors you're thinking about and then say, Will I disrupt this industry? Be very thoughtful about that. Number six, I encourage you to lean into learning. I believe the best way for you to prepare yourself in this new era is to become a voracious learner. Be curious about everything. Don't settle for superficial learning. Dive into every class you take with gusto. Ask questions. Experiment and embrace the messiness of the learning process. Become that kid because you are a learner. You will be much more able to adapt and change as the world changes. And read books. Read books of substance. Read old books that have stood the test of time. Read history. Science. Literature. Think deeply about things. Lean into learning. Last point. Surround yourself with outstanding people. People who will push your thinking are invaluable. Motivational speaker John Rohn said this. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Find peers who are motivated to succeed. Find peers that lift you. Find peers that will challenge you. Also find mentors. Every good story you know. This has a wise old man or woman who guides the young hero or heroine to their quest. It's awesome to be young and full of life, but you need a mentor who will help you grow into the person you aspire to be. Find a teacher, a counselor, a pastor, a parent who can help you navigate all the challenges you're facing. There is nothing better than someone who is further down the path of life than you to help guide their way. So to summarize over over reliance on I will harm you. You should still use. I don't believe everything you see avoid I companion apps choose your college major carefully lean into learning. Surround yourself with outstanding people. You know, I don't really know how A.I. is going to be used in the future. It'll be integrated into the fabric of your life in ways that I can't foresee. In the same way that people before electricity couldn't fathom the idea that power running through a wire could cool their food and power devices they never even would have conceived of. So as you explore how to use AI, remember that however you use it, don't let it take away any aspect of your humanity. You were built for relationships with real people. You were built to think and act on your own free will. Do not waste your life on frivolous things and ideas. Become a man or a woman of substance. You know each one of us has one shot at this life. I want each of you to leave our school ready for the uncertain, changing and challenging world you will enter. I want you to utilize the tools at your disposal to their fullest extent, while also maintaining your humanity and your dignity. We are counting on you to make the world a better place for all of us.
00:18:08 Jon Bergmann: Thanks, guys. Mr. Bergmann, hey, guys, you've been listening to the Reach Every Student podcast with me, John Bergmann. I hope that this podcast about I will help you think about this, but also possibly you will play this for your students and hear my heart for students. Hey, Jon Bergmann. Out.
