The Human Element

Imagine this story that might have taken place in the 1880s. A young horse and wagon driver returns from a trip without the cargo that his father asked him to get. The father asks him where the cargo is and the son responds that the horses refused to stop at the right place to pick up the cargo. The father responds, "But, I taught you how to use the reins." The son looks at him and defiantly says… This story might sound like a set up for a joke. But, it is not. The son refuses to acknowledge that if he had used the reins, a form of technology, correctly the horses, perhaps a natural technology in this story, would have had to stop. This brief story might seem silly but how often do people blame technological mistakes on technology? 

Here's another story. This one is a real memory of mine. The year is 1992. The parochial school where I teach holds a parents' meeting to discuss the use of computers in education. A professor from a nearby college explains that computers can be dangerous if people develop too much of a reliance on them. He tells the story of a cashier arguing with a customer about how much change she should receive because "the computer says so." The cashier is unable to do simple arithmetic herself to recognize that the computer is malfunctioning. The professor also explains the incredible advancements that computers can enable. But, to summarize the talk, computers are a tool for people and they are only effective if people know how to use them properly. He ended his talk by explaining that this is the purpose of education - to enable students to develop the skills to correctly use technological tools to accomplish their objectives. 

I truly fear a day in which technology stops being a tool to support people in achieving their objectives and becomes something autonomous. Perhaps one way to allay this fear is to continuously remind ourselves that the only purpose of technology is to assist us. People must know what we want to achieve before we ask the technology to help us accomplish the task. The more intelligent we can be when we use the technology the better the result we can expect. 

Artificial intelligence is, of course, a cutting edge technology of our day. As with any cutting edge technology, some people are afraid of it and want it to go away. This is not going to happen. Other people think that AI is the panacea for all problems. This is certainly not true. In reality, AI, like all other technology, has both positive and negative aspects. But, it is not about the technology itself. It is about the ways in which people use it. 

Actually, it is about the tasks that it can help people accomplish and the objectives that it can help people fulfill. The stories above told of individuals who could not use technologies effectively to meet their objectives. Artificial intelligence is certainly more complicated than either horses and buggies or basic computers. These two earlier technologies required common knowledge to use effectively. They were, and the cash register still is, used for general tasks. AI, on the other hand, can accomplish far more sophisticated tasks when used properly. 

Of course, different kinds of AI have different purposes. For example, one type of AI could monitor the health of agricultural growth. Another type of AI could evaluate the symptoms of a hospital patient to determine the correct diagnosis. Each of these distinct tools must be properly programmed to accomplish their respective tasks. As importantly, subject matter experts who understand agriculture and medicine must ensure that the technologies are not hallucinating and are instead working properly. 

As the founder of an educational content development company, I am often asked how generative AI in general, and Large Language Models (LLMs) in particular, are going to influence the work that we do. I respond that it has never been more important to have real intelligence, not artificial intelligence, review the content developed for learning purposes. People, more specifically subject matter experts, must ensure that LLMs learn from quality content. These experts must also use strong prompts and review the output for accuracy and quality. Thankfully, people continue to have an important function in the development of high quality content. 

To sum it up, runaway technology, similar to runaway horses, simply will not get the job done right. Properly trained people, subject matter experts, using technology will.