Eric, this is brilliant. Your insights are running parallel to a research study I am about to launch via my next semester course Artificial Intelligence Theory and Composition. Students need strategies to learn. AI can be incorporate to manifest learning---make it visible---as you say--thus reinforcing links between the cognitive processes of selecting, organizing, and integrating. At least that is what we are seeing anecdotally right now.
Great article and Substack. I don’t know if I entirely agree with everything, but “know thy enemy and know thyself” is my rule of thumb, and this article’s a good start to a better knowing of both.
External information-supplying (cognitive) aids let humans overcome:
* accretion and access requirements of long-term memory.
* size limits of short-term and working memory.
* locus/distraction/prioritization constraints on attention.
Humans iteratively develop and share cognitive aids. Human knowledge output accumulates through collective and incremental effort to create knowledge-bases and tools, evolving culture and technology.
Individual output is the result of processing the sum total of inputs a person receives over time. Seen in that way, individual intellectual contribution is driven primarily by contributions from the rest of civilization, going back thousands of years, with some loss and rediscovery as civilizations fell and rose.
The question in education comes down to whether to emphasize knowledge products (for example, essays or solved math problems) or producing knowledge (for example, how to make a logical argument or think through a math problem).
Minimally, for either approach, you need the invention of writing and illustration and the various job roles that allow civilizational development through text and picture use (for example, authors and publishers) as well as the cognitive aids that writing and illustration require such as printing, books, paper, pens, chalkboard, chalk, and teachers. Without even those cognitive aids, most topics taught in school, and information processing performed at work, are permanently unapproachable by people (us).
Human cognitive constraints must be acknowledged. We need cognitive aids regardless in order to teach and to learn. As topic difficulty and complexity goes up, so does the need for better or more sophisticated cognitive aids.
Past that, the real issues around how to teach seem to be ultimately budgetary. Money is the bottleneck. Teaching how to produce knowledge is expensive compared to teaching how to produce knowledge products. Modern information technology rationalizes (partitions and sequences) and automates difficult aspects of producing knowledge, off-loading the hard stuff onto devices, making it easy to produce knowledge products. However, it remains more difficult (ie, more expensive) to teach humans how to produce knowledge with minimal (pen and paper) rather than maximal (AI) cognitive aids.
Great piece. Insights are useful beyond formal education to anyone who needs to process info into insight - most white collar workers. I’ve linked to it from my site www.decodingai.net
Love this piece! I'm running a small, experimental class called Prompt and Circumstance in spring focused solely on writing prompts to achieve whatever goals the students want. This article plus one by E. Mollick will set the tone beautifully. You've also got me thinking about distributed cognition (or extended cognition -- I'm still working on understanding the difference). I intend to approach P&C from the co-intelligence perspective. Adding extension, perhaps emphasizing it, makes for a more powerful frame that avoids some of the anthropomorphic rhetoric around AI. Thank you!
I like the idea of #AI as an assistive technology that extends our minds. But is that compelling enough to warrant all the destructive practices that go along with the #AI gold rush, from ignoring author and creator rights to exponential energy needs just as the #climatecrisis is getting ever more real and present?
Eric, this is brilliant. Your insights are running parallel to a research study I am about to launch via my next semester course Artificial Intelligence Theory and Composition. Students need strategies to learn. AI can be incorporate to manifest learning---make it visible---as you say--thus reinforcing links between the cognitive processes of selecting, organizing, and integrating. At least that is what we are seeing anecdotally right now.
Thanks so much, Nick. That project sounds interesting, and I’m always thrilled to see educators engaging students as thought partners in this work.
Great article and Substack. I don’t know if I entirely agree with everything, but “know thy enemy and know thyself” is my rule of thumb, and this article’s a good start to a better knowing of both.
External information-supplying (cognitive) aids let humans overcome:
* accretion and access requirements of long-term memory.
* size limits of short-term and working memory.
* locus/distraction/prioritization constraints on attention.
Humans iteratively develop and share cognitive aids. Human knowledge output accumulates through collective and incremental effort to create knowledge-bases and tools, evolving culture and technology.
Individual output is the result of processing the sum total of inputs a person receives over time. Seen in that way, individual intellectual contribution is driven primarily by contributions from the rest of civilization, going back thousands of years, with some loss and rediscovery as civilizations fell and rose.
The question in education comes down to whether to emphasize knowledge products (for example, essays or solved math problems) or producing knowledge (for example, how to make a logical argument or think through a math problem).
Minimally, for either approach, you need the invention of writing and illustration and the various job roles that allow civilizational development through text and picture use (for example, authors and publishers) as well as the cognitive aids that writing and illustration require such as printing, books, paper, pens, chalkboard, chalk, and teachers. Without even those cognitive aids, most topics taught in school, and information processing performed at work, are permanently unapproachable by people (us).
Human cognitive constraints must be acknowledged. We need cognitive aids regardless in order to teach and to learn. As topic difficulty and complexity goes up, so does the need for better or more sophisticated cognitive aids.
Past that, the real issues around how to teach seem to be ultimately budgetary. Money is the bottleneck. Teaching how to produce knowledge is expensive compared to teaching how to produce knowledge products. Modern information technology rationalizes (partitions and sequences) and automates difficult aspects of producing knowledge, off-loading the hard stuff onto devices, making it easy to produce knowledge products. However, it remains more difficult (ie, more expensive) to teach humans how to produce knowledge with minimal (pen and paper) rather than maximal (AI) cognitive aids.
Great piece. Insights are useful beyond formal education to anyone who needs to process info into insight - most white collar workers. I’ve linked to it from my site www.decodingai.net
Love this piece! I'm running a small, experimental class called Prompt and Circumstance in spring focused solely on writing prompts to achieve whatever goals the students want. This article plus one by E. Mollick will set the tone beautifully. You've also got me thinking about distributed cognition (or extended cognition -- I'm still working on understanding the difference). I intend to approach P&C from the co-intelligence perspective. Adding extension, perhaps emphasizing it, makes for a more powerful frame that avoids some of the anthropomorphic rhetoric around AI. Thank you!
I like the idea of #AI as an assistive technology that extends our minds. But is that compelling enough to warrant all the destructive practices that go along with the #AI gold rush, from ignoring author and creator rights to exponential energy needs just as the #climatecrisis is getting ever more real and present?