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BS Universities: The Future of Automated Education w/ Rob Sparrow & Gene Flenady

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Manage episode 500595570 series 2314348
Content provided by humrespro and Human Restoration Project. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by humrespro and Human Restoration Project or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

“Any assessment of the potential of AI to contribute to education must begin with an accurate understanding of the nature of the outputs of AI,” my guests today write, “The most important reason to resist the use of AI in universities if that its outputs are fundamentally bullshit – indeed, strictly speaking, they are meaningless bullshit.”

That particular term of art may appear to be attention-seeking or dismissive of the issue of AI entirely, but it’s actually the root of a much deeper philosophical critique, like the late anthropologist David Graeber’s notion of “bullshit jobs”, but leveled at Generative AI and the way it distorts the purpose and function of teaching, learning, and education itself. My guests today are Robert Sparrow and Gene Flenady, professor and lecturer, respectively, in philosophy at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where they join me from, and they are collaborators on two recent articles: Bullshit universities: the future of automated education and Cut the bullshit: why Generative AI systems are neither collaborators nor tutors. As a heads up, we’re gonna be saying bullshit a LOT, sometimes in an academic context, sometimes not so much.

Bullshit universities: the future of automated education

Cut the bullshit: why GenAI systems are neither collaborators nor tutors

  continue reading

168 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 
Manage episode 500595570 series 2314348
Content provided by humrespro and Human Restoration Project. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by humrespro and Human Restoration Project or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

“Any assessment of the potential of AI to contribute to education must begin with an accurate understanding of the nature of the outputs of AI,” my guests today write, “The most important reason to resist the use of AI in universities if that its outputs are fundamentally bullshit – indeed, strictly speaking, they are meaningless bullshit.”

That particular term of art may appear to be attention-seeking or dismissive of the issue of AI entirely, but it’s actually the root of a much deeper philosophical critique, like the late anthropologist David Graeber’s notion of “bullshit jobs”, but leveled at Generative AI and the way it distorts the purpose and function of teaching, learning, and education itself. My guests today are Robert Sparrow and Gene Flenady, professor and lecturer, respectively, in philosophy at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where they join me from, and they are collaborators on two recent articles: Bullshit universities: the future of automated education and Cut the bullshit: why Generative AI systems are neither collaborators nor tutors. As a heads up, we’re gonna be saying bullshit a LOT, sometimes in an academic context, sometimes not so much.

Bullshit universities: the future of automated education

Cut the bullshit: why GenAI systems are neither collaborators nor tutors

  continue reading

168 episodes

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