Tea at Trianon: An ArtificiaI Intelligence Program May Be Instructing Your Child

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, May 13, 2024

An ArtificiaI Intelligence Program May Be Instructing Your Child

From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

While parents have been worrying about what their child's teacher is teaching in the classroom, there may be another classroom presence they should be more concerned about.

That presence is a new generation of artificial intelligence products being used in the classroom to complete tasks such as diagnostic testing, content drills, data collection on students, etc. They are also being used to teach.

One product, i-Ready by Curriculum Associates, is a program being used throughout the United States and most important, in Maryland.

i-Ready Supports Maryland (curriculumassociates.com)

The program is promoted as an easy way to assess students, identify student weaknesses and progress, and instruct students. All without a teacher involved. The company adds, "And it's fun!"

There are some glaring problems with AI (artificial intelligence) programs in school.

Alex Molnar, a director of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at Colorado University Boulder, recently wrote an article suggesting an "indefinite pause" in implementing these programs in our nation's classrooms. Co-authors included Ben Williamson of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom and Faith Boninger, assistant research professor of education at CU Boulder.

First, Molnar notes that these programs use opaque and usually proprietary algorithms—making their inner workings mysterious to educators, parents and students alike. The companies claim to be protecting their investment but may also be protecting harmful changes in how these programs work on the minds of our children.

First, there is a concern over the data collection that will happen when a child is connected to this program and responding to carefully designed questions. With little to no control or knowledge of the algorithms, it's hard to protect what information artificial programming will elicit from children and how that information will be used. (Read more.)