As an older boomer, I found this way of looking at AI quite enlightening. AI can be used for both positive and negative purposes. Depends on the hands guiding it. Many thanks for this article.
What a great post! I not only learned a lot (and am keeping it for reference), but have passed it to my daughter who uses AI and wants a better way of doing it. The key point here is that this ‘discipline’ applies to much more than AI, which you note.
‘Ask better questions.
Frame fairly.
Define success.
Check evidence.
That’s the new civic toolkit — as vital as reading, writing, or voting.
Because in a world driven by words, how you ask determines who you become.’
Beautifully stated with clarity! Thank you very much for taking the time and effort to share this. (As one who worried, -apparently unnecessarily- that it would erode my brain, you’ve sold me!)
I used to teach Freshman writing and public speaking in American and Japanese colleges. In both courses, much of the class time was devoted to distinguishing between rhetoric, intent, and information, as well as the fallacies of informal logic. I also ran the biology labs (Temple University Japan) and included a heavy dose of science as problem-solving through applied critical-thinking skills ... with a wary eye on general human biases and fallacies of observation.
I tried to help students transfer that recognition to their own output, hopefully with a mature moral dimension. But in my role as a facilitator, rather than a 'sage-on-stage', I had only a limited influence on the purposes of their output, especially once they graduated and were no longer constrained by classroom evaluation.
If I were still in the classroom and had the same autonomy to teach as I see fit, I would include this post as part of the curriculum rather than as a separate course ... perhaps under the full disclosure of 'A.I. Assisted Thinking and Communication Skills'.
My reasoning for such an intent is two-fold:
1 — There is no putting the genie back into the bottle. For example, while writing this comment, I was assisted by an A.I.-powered grammar checker (Grammarly), although I did not use all of its suggestions.
2 — After a first read of this post, I suspected that all of the prompting suggestions could be derived from the same, more traditional materials I used in helping students develop critical thinking skills.
Upon finishing this comment, I will revisit the post with the above in mind, sit on it for a while, and think about how I might also apply these skills.
Cheers from Japan, and again, thank you for a job well done.
I to had students in a Christian school system. It was the most rewarding thing I had done in my mind. Very impressive background and your article is captivating. Kudos
Even my simplest questions asking for practical help in using a software program often gives me confident, but wrong, 'hallucinations'.
And for the bigger questions involving morality, a recent Tucker Carlson interview of Sam Altman revealed a worryingly superficial distinction between 'The Gospel According to John' and 'The Marquis de Sade' ... from 9:10. And again 14:10, Sam Altman as the ultimate moral arbiter of Chat GPT? And hitting home even harder at 35:50.
But we can also apply similar problems and reasoning to the invention of the printing press. During the time of Gutenberg and Martin Luther, humanity was at another tipping point — torn between allowing a thoroughly corrupt Catholic Church to keep a monopoly on 'the word of God', or putting the power of literacy into the hands of everyone ... also a guarantee that words in general, the Bible in particular, will be used for malicious purposes, e.g. Elmer Gantry.
I suspect the same argument can be applied to language and thought itself ... 'In the beginning was the word'. And with the transformative power of the word, also began the secular transactional power and corruption of the word.
I tend to trust behavior more than words, but even a judgement based on observation of behavior can be mistaken and have limits. Luke 7:36–50.
I guess we are fighting a forever-war of mankind against itself, ourselves sometimes on both sides. Once we take authenticity and moral autonomy for granted, we have lost.
Good advice but I use AI not as a designer of content but as a glorified search engine that bypasses Google algorithms. It generate statistic and graphs faster than you could ever possibly do on excel. I know there are numerous versions and models but I'm partial to Chat Gpt for the following reasons. Ask it a question and it footnotes the sources of its answer, which I can then click on and read the articles for myself. Always better to read what the person actually said or wrote themselves than a summation by AI. It really does speed up research on topics, plus it's fun to call BS on an answer when AI left something politically uncorrect out of a reply. Very kiss ass when it apologizes and changes tack.
As an older boomer, I found this way of looking at AI quite enlightening. AI can be used for both positive and negative purposes. Depends on the hands guiding it. Many thanks for this article.
What a great post! I not only learned a lot (and am keeping it for reference), but have passed it to my daughter who uses AI and wants a better way of doing it. The key point here is that this ‘discipline’ applies to much more than AI, which you note.
‘Ask better questions.
Frame fairly.
Define success.
Check evidence.
That’s the new civic toolkit — as vital as reading, writing, or voting.
Because in a world driven by words, how you ask determines who you become.’
Beautifully stated with clarity! Thank you very much for taking the time and effort to share this. (As one who worried, -apparently unnecessarily- that it would erode my brain, you’ve sold me!)
🤜🏻🤛🏻
Very well done.
I used to teach Freshman writing and public speaking in American and Japanese colleges. In both courses, much of the class time was devoted to distinguishing between rhetoric, intent, and information, as well as the fallacies of informal logic. I also ran the biology labs (Temple University Japan) and included a heavy dose of science as problem-solving through applied critical-thinking skills ... with a wary eye on general human biases and fallacies of observation.
I tried to help students transfer that recognition to their own output, hopefully with a mature moral dimension. But in my role as a facilitator, rather than a 'sage-on-stage', I had only a limited influence on the purposes of their output, especially once they graduated and were no longer constrained by classroom evaluation.
If I were still in the classroom and had the same autonomy to teach as I see fit, I would include this post as part of the curriculum rather than as a separate course ... perhaps under the full disclosure of 'A.I. Assisted Thinking and Communication Skills'.
My reasoning for such an intent is two-fold:
1 — There is no putting the genie back into the bottle. For example, while writing this comment, I was assisted by an A.I.-powered grammar checker (Grammarly), although I did not use all of its suggestions.
2 — After a first read of this post, I suspected that all of the prompting suggestions could be derived from the same, more traditional materials I used in helping students develop critical thinking skills.
Upon finishing this comment, I will revisit the post with the above in mind, sit on it for a while, and think about how I might also apply these skills.
Cheers from Japan, and again, thank you for a job well done.
Good job packaging this information. Thanks for a good read.
Great tutorial…thank you!
Thank you for this brilliant, enlightened and informative explanation about using AI.
I’ve learned a lot and have a much better understanding of how important the framing of our questions are.
I’m sharing with my kids and grandkids.
I to had students in a Christian school system. It was the most rewarding thing I had done in my mind. Very impressive background and your article is captivating. Kudos
I do not trust AI in any way. It will be a tool used by the Antichrist.
I hear you Bob, and agree.
Even my simplest questions asking for practical help in using a software program often gives me confident, but wrong, 'hallucinations'.
And for the bigger questions involving morality, a recent Tucker Carlson interview of Sam Altman revealed a worryingly superficial distinction between 'The Gospel According to John' and 'The Marquis de Sade' ... from 9:10. And again 14:10, Sam Altman as the ultimate moral arbiter of Chat GPT? And hitting home even harder at 35:50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmpT-BoVf4
But we can also apply similar problems and reasoning to the invention of the printing press. During the time of Gutenberg and Martin Luther, humanity was at another tipping point — torn between allowing a thoroughly corrupt Catholic Church to keep a monopoly on 'the word of God', or putting the power of literacy into the hands of everyone ... also a guarantee that words in general, the Bible in particular, will be used for malicious purposes, e.g. Elmer Gantry.
I suspect the same argument can be applied to language and thought itself ... 'In the beginning was the word'. And with the transformative power of the word, also began the secular transactional power and corruption of the word.
I tend to trust behavior more than words, but even a judgement based on observation of behavior can be mistaken and have limits. Luke 7:36–50.
I guess we are fighting a forever-war of mankind against itself, ourselves sometimes on both sides. Once we take authenticity and moral autonomy for granted, we have lost.
Keep up the good fight Bob.
You should air this on TV. Then you can be a tele-prompter.
Good advice but I use AI not as a designer of content but as a glorified search engine that bypasses Google algorithms. It generate statistic and graphs faster than you could ever possibly do on excel. I know there are numerous versions and models but I'm partial to Chat Gpt for the following reasons. Ask it a question and it footnotes the sources of its answer, which I can then click on and read the articles for myself. Always better to read what the person actually said or wrote themselves than a summation by AI. It really does speed up research on topics, plus it's fun to call BS on an answer when AI left something politically uncorrect out of a reply. Very kiss ass when it apologizes and changes tack.
Dick Minnis
removingthecataract.substack.com
Google Dork Operators….
Edge, Bing have them as well.