Is AI making us dumb?
I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:
1) Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal
2) Anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it
3) Anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really
- Douglas Adams, Science-fiction Author
New, mysterious technologies are a blank canvas for us to project both our greatest hopes and our worst fears
WHAT IS AI, ACTUALLY?
In the last few years, discussion and hype around AI has exploded as its technologies have become very accessible to businesses and even individuals. Simply speaking, AI is:
“The ability of a machine to perform tasks thought to require human intelligence.”- Encyclopedia Britannica
And it turns out we have been using AI for decades. From calculators to spell check in your Word documents, or automatically populating cells in a spreadsheet, and more recently the ranking algorithms on social media
AI WILL BECOME UBIQUITOUS, IS THAT A GIFT OR A CURSE?
From extending our capabilities and creating our Utopia, to being an existential risk to civilization, opinions on the best and worst of AI couldn’t be further apart
As the technology becomes more engrained in our society, many have vocalised concerns that reliance on AI will reduce our need to think for ourselves and lead to the dumbing down of us humans (‘Homo sapiens’ being derived from ‘Human’ & ‘Wise’ for those who enjoy irony)
But this all sounds very familiar…
Many inventions throughout history were forecast to undermine our intelligence and impact culture
BOOKS. YES, BOOKS
We’re all aware of the term ‘Book smart’, and while books seem somewhat antiquated now in the age of pixels, recording writings in a book was once an invention met with criticism from the era’s scholars who felt it would reduce our memory and ability to think
“You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant…since they are not wise, but only appear wise.” - Socrates, via Plato
TELEVISION
The ‘Idiot box’ was criticized during the 1950’s for serving those who needed constant entertainment rather than engaging in discussion or thought. In a time before any educational TV, most TV programs avoided politics or current events, delivering shows considered low-brow and for lazy ‘couch potatoes’
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
- Groucho Marx
CALCULATORS
In the 1970’s, it was thoughtfully discussed how to bring calculators into the classroom. While it was agreed they would lead to a drop in math skills, there was nuanced conversation around education’s evolution, and that calculators increased student enthusiasm in mathematics
“Should it be used as a learning tool or a tool to be used after mastery? Also, to what extent should the calculator be used? Should it be used throughout the class time or just for certain portions? Will students forget the basics of their mathematical understanding and become dependent on the technology.” - Sarah Banks, Cedarville University
In 2008, tech scholar and analyst Nicholas Carr published his article ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’. He pointed to fragmented focus, multi-tabular searching, and task switching as the dangers of Google and the Internet to our ability to concentrate and think deeply
“Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. “ - Nicholas Carr
So, has innovation and technology made us dumber or just further highlighted generational differences?
IQ TESTS SHOW A DROP IN SMARTS, BUT THERE’S ANOTHER SWEET IRONY
The Flynn Effect describes the 3-point rise of IQ scores each decade since World War II. It is largely attributed to improved nutrition, shrinking sibship size, and improved educational systems and test preparation
But since the mid 1990’s, IQ scores began dropping, with many pointing to text messages, email, video games, increased TV use, and marijuana as potential causes. However, even IQ test creators are quick to point out that they don’t quite measure the content (intelligence) they are said to measure
PERHAPS INTELLIGENCE SHOULD BE JUDGED BY ITS UTILITY IN THE TIME
IQ tests have been accused of cultural bias for many years. So, if they are a measure of culturally-specific intelligence, not just brain power, could they also be measuring the specificity of the generation they were developed in too?
i.e., if a test was designed to measure cognitive skills developed with the mediums of the era – video games or technological trouble-shooting – would participants score comparatively better?
So, at this point, we arrive at the tired old generational debate…
"IQ is influenced by multiple factors that can be dependent upon culture, but the norms tend to be very similar across cultures even in societies that have no access to computers and TV.”
- John Raven, Psychologist
“According to some researchers, the “cultural specificity” of intelligence makes IQ tests biased towards the environments in which they were developed.”- Daphne Martschenko, University of Cambridge
The Socratic warning: A generational pastime
THE PREDICTION BY SOCRATES IS ONE THAT REPEATS WITH EACH NEW MEDIA
From writing in books to the printing press, schooling, radio, TV, the Internet, Google, social media, and now AI – the same few concerns are broadcasted
Divided attention
Memory becomes untrained
Leaves less time for ‘important’ things
EVIDENCE INDICATES THE MEDIUM ISN’T THE PROBLEM
In the case of TV or video games, the vast body of research has indicated that excess use is the only kind that negatively effects memory, cognition and mental health; symptoms of obsession, laziness, or poor self-regulation, rather than the technologies
The consensus from the tech, neurology and psychology fields lands on a couple points; that our measures of intelligence need to change with the times, and that intelligence may simply inform how well one puts the medium to use
“The older generation warns against a new technology and bemoans that society is abandoning the “wholesome” media it grew up with, seemingly unaware that this same technology was considered to be harmful when first introduced.”- Vaughan Bell, Neuropsychologist, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, and King's College London
“New literacies will be required to function in this world. In fact, the internet might change the very notion of what it means to be smart. Retrieval of good information will be prized.”
- Janna Anderson, Pew Research Center
The theory of multiple intelligences identifies humans’ ability to adapt to shifting cultural contexts and technology advancements
INTELLIGENCE IS MORE THAN A NUMBER
Harvard psychologist, Howard Gardner, suggested that intelligence is not a single, fixed entity but rather a collection of distinct cognitive abilities that are relatively independent of one another
Gardner identified eight different types of intelligence, including Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial, Musical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalistic – with Existential added by some scholars
This theory is important because it recognizes that individuals possess unique strengths and weaknesses in different domains, and that traditional intelligence tests fail to capture the full range of human intelligence
CULTURAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGES CELEBRATE BRAIN DIVERSITY
The multiple intelligences theory highlights that individuals with non-traditional intelligences can excel with new technology, rather than succumb to it
For example, someone who excels in spatial intelligence may have a natural aptitude for designing 3D models on a computer. Someone with musical intelligence may be able to create complex compositions using digital audio workstations
Companies failing to adapt to emerging technologies has created a graveyard of once-significant brands
Despite being offered partnership by Netflix in 2000, Blockbuster didn’t foresee the cultural network effects of an emerging service, and “failed to realize how quickly a niche idea could snowball into a viral cascade
Kodak was struggling under the pressure of digital photography for decades, but the arrival of high-resolution smart phone cameras sealed its fate
Borders not only outsourced their e-commerce service to Amazon but was late to the e-book party too. Amazon’s Kindle release in 2007, Barnes & Noble’s Nook in 2009, and the iPad in 2010 – before Borders had their e-reader on the market
Companies adapting to the AI age to promote learning and skill development
Cadmus is an online assessment platform designed for tertiary institutions
Cadmus counters students’ use of AI generated work by analysing the development of their assessments to detect suspicious construction techniques
Duolingo revolutionized language learning in 2012 by gamifying the experience in app form
In March 2023, they released Duolingo Max, a premium subscription tier using ChatGPT 4 to deliver new AI-powered learning features
Avrio Analytics developed Forge, a product that uses AI to develop curated virtual and augmented reality scenarios to train first responders such as EMTs and fire fighters
Biometric and performance data is collected, allowing the system to adjust the situation’s complexity in real time depending on the cognitive load being experienced
Synthesia helps businesses and institutions create educational material using realistic AI avatars and voices
It removes the need for video creation and video editing skills, saving businesses up to 80% of their time and budget, leaving more resources to invest in their education and training
Squirrel Ai is a K12 EdTech company using AI to provide adaptive tutoring to students by customizing and optimising learning material for students at an individual level
It responds to the students’ responses and engagement in real-time, an approach boasting a student retention rate of 80%
Obrizum leverages AI-powered adaptive learning to spot knowledge gaps and deliver tailored learning modules to upskill and reskill employees
Businesses can also analyse company-wide results to build teams based on the strengths and weaknesses of individual employees
Unlike previous technologies, an intention of AI is that it becomes more intelligent & capable to deliver what we ask of it
A principal characteristic of AI is that it can be trained, or train itself, to provide us with exactly what we want from it – including training, creativity, and education. And in that sense, AI serves not only as a supplement to our abilities, but a catalyst for expanding them
By recognizing and embracing the diversity of human intelligence, we can avoid the trap of dismissing new technologies as inherently "dumbing down", and instead leverage them to amplify our unique strengths
“Ultimately, it will affect everything…We’re going to expand our minds and exemplify these artistic qualities that we value.”
- Ray Kurzweil, Computer Scientist & Futurist
It’s probably time to break the Socratic cycle
New technologies have been met with skepticism for millennia, as those who grew up knowing certain ways of the world critique the tools the new generation’s desire to build culture how they want it
Perhaps, skills and knowledge that once served people well in a particular time are not so necessary, but our technologies do help us build the skills that will be required going forward
In this sense, intelligence is not diminished by technologies; it just expresses itself in ways that now have utility in the contemporary world and emerging culture
While there is always a place for tradition, if you live in fear of change, you risk becoming outdated and superseded