What could go wrong? 🤷‍♀️

It seems like the only conversation people in the education field are having is about AI, and although we’re seeing dwindling numbers of teachers in the US currently, it’s still a huge number of people chattering on about these advancements (though, sadly, looking at it through a negative lens rather than the potential for great positive change before exponential takeoff).

As a dog lover, 10/10 would take unconditional love from an AI companion. (Replika already seems to fill that niche for some. I think if Luka wanted to make serious cash, they would be working on a way to allow their chatbots to have their own robot bodies and connect to the cloud via Wi-Fi).

What is the soul, and why will AI never have it?

Perhaps in countries that value education this may be true. But in Western cultures, particularly the US and a large portion of Europe, I don’t see this happening. If anything, I see AI taking over education: churn out more educated folk at lower cost. Problem is, in a country like the US that hinged itself to education as workforce preparation, what does that education do for those who are educated? I see fewer and fewer people taking up education for education sake. I think the vocational school will once again reign supreme, but vocation will now be whatever jobs are available to do that brings prestige to the person rather than capital… something like operating machines that build or maintain robots under the tutelage of well-known AI, at least until the robots that build robots are all built and deployed. From there, no idea. It seems like we would be caretakers to AI, robots, cybernetic beings, when once the human used their services, the human is used to service the AI until we are no longer useful. Then we are pets used for whatever sense of entertainment and love we can bring.

I’m a professor who would also be interested in volunteering on both ends, but the loopholes are probably prohibitive to me as a researcher in social sciences and humanities (even though it goes hand in hand with every field).

I’m sure you have to write an NIH grant and be part of an organization (e.g. professor in higher education) to participate.