Mecca: Writing and using words to tell stories is really important to me. So when I read an article about what happens when we start letting AI do more and more of the composition for us, and particularly for students, that really got me thinking, are we failing to teach and use basic writing skills that teach us way more than just writing? The concern for me isn't just whether a student can write an essay without Chat GPT. It's whether they're actually learning how to think. how to recognize what's good or bad, what's right or wrong, and how to make those judgments for themselves. I absolutely believe there has to be a mix. Technology can assist us, and I think it should, but there still has to be a process where we're developing our own intelligence and our own ability to learn. I think the ability to write is a huge part of that, which is why this article caught my attention in the first place. And I wanted to bring it to you guys because I really want to hear y'all's take. Where is that line between using AI as a tool and allowing it to replace the learning we're supposed to be doing ourselves?
Cole: You know, my response to that would be AI is here. It's not going anywhere. It's a tool that in order for the next generation to be not just successful, but even capable of the jobs that they're going to be expected to do, they're gonna have to be able to use it. I don't think we do ourselves any favors by trying to figure out how to keep it out of education. I completely agree that kids need opportunities to develop critical thinking skills, and writing is a really efficient way to do that. But I'm not convinced that simply finding some compromise between the old way of teaching and the new technology is actually going to get us where we need to go. We're entering territory we've never really dealt with before. We have a technology that can do a lot of the things we've Traditionally use school work to teach us how to do. So I think the bigger question is, what do we replace those methods with? There are other ways to develop critical thinking, problem solving and judgment. We just haven't figured out what all of those new methods look like yet. And I think that's the challenge. We need to make sure that we're preparing kids to think critically without simultaneously handicapping them in a world where AI is going to be everywhere.
Callie: You know, when I read this article, my first thought was, is AI assisted writing becoming the calculator of the writing world? Because when calculators came along, we didn't decide that kids no longer needed to understand math. We had to figure out how to use that technology without losing the underlying skills. And that made me start thinking about this beyond just school. There's research coming out of Japan that is looking at how physical activities like writing, pen to paper, are helping maintain cognitive function as we age. And it raised the question for me: what happens 20 years from now if we've spent our entire lives outsourcing more and more of our thinking to machines? I'm not worried about AI writing an email for me. I'm worried about what happens if we get so accustomed to having something else formulate all of our thoughts, solve all of our problems, and make decisions that we stop exercising those abilities ourselves. Because maybe this isn't ultimately a conversation about what we're taking away from kids. Maybe it's a conversation about what we're potentially giving up as human beings if we're really not careful. Welcome to Two Millennials and Mom. I'm Callie.
Cole: I'm Cole.
Mecca: And I'm mom. Callie, I think that calculator part is really significant because you look at so many people today who can't do math because they've always done it with a calculator.
Cole: Well I mean but here's the thing.
Callie: Do you
Cole: It's it's not that straightforward. There's there there's
Callie: Yeah.
Cole: there's more nuance to it than that. If you don't understand the mathematical concepts, how are you going to apply them to a calculator?
Callie: Right. Well, and there were still plenty of people who couldn't do math long before the calculator came around. And I also think about it in terms of you always had those teachers saying, You're not always gonna have a calculator in your pocket, and then you kinda giggle and you're like, ha ha showed you. And
Mecca: Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Callie: I think that that same kind of thing could be applied here to this line of thinking about AI. You're not always gonna have access to whatever large language model, learning language learning model, whatever they call whatever they are, LLMs.
Mecca: L L
Callie: And I think that that's not true. I and maybe it's maybe it looks different as it evolves. into more everyday life? Maybe we teach ourselves to address it differently and to hold ourselves accountable in different ways because we're so good at that. So excited. But I just wonder if if we start continue, because I think to some extent several of us are very guilty of it. If we continue outsourcing our thinking, at what point does that become Detrimental to the point that we can't recover.
Mecca: Well, I think you're right. I I think that we maybe have to find a new way. It's not gonna be just you have to keep it out of school, because I don't think that's right either. I think you're absolutely on point when you say this is going to be the future of any job that you have is going to be inclusive of AI. So you have to use it and educate on it, but you can't just solely use it.
Cole: Sure. And
Mecca: Particularly.
Cole: it's like we've said before, you've got to educate people on how to use it responsibly. But I want to back up to something Callie said a minute ago about accountability. Cause one of the things that really struck me from this article is the one-third of American students who have insufficient literacy skills. So we're going to take away tools that can help them and tell them that they have to do these things, but we're not going to teach them how to read and write.
Callie: think, Cole, I think that there's still more nuance to that because I would
Cole: sure.
Callie: suspect that if you were to go back and look at the historical data, that one third of American students who don't have the ability to read and write is probably the lowest that that has ever been.
Mecca: Well, I don't know if that's true or not.
Callie: In recent history, in the last hundred years. You think?
Mecca: I don't know. I don't know. That's worth a Google.
Cole: In eighteen seventy, roughly twenty percent of the total adult population was illiterate. In nineteen thirty the illiteracy rate dropped to roughly four percent.
Callie: Wow, that surprises me. According to who?
Cole: By nineteen seventy one, the US Census Bureau recorded a peak literacy rate of approximately ninety-nine percent. Currently, according to the National Literacy Institute, roughly twenty one percent, one in five, are considered functionally illiterate or struggle with basic reading tasks.
Callie: So we've got a discrepancy there. Thirty-three percent versus twenty percent, twenty-one. sure. Okay.
Cole: Well, this is adults, the other is students.
Callie: Interesting.
Cole: Reading level data indicates that fifty four percent of American adults read below the equivalent of a sixth grade reading level.
Mecca: I would say that's been pretty consistent. Sixth grade I think would be high. But your point of if you know that you have this level of illiteracy, you certainly don't stop teaching.
Callie: Yeah.
Mecca: to that and and AI is not going to
Cole: Yeah. You have to be able to read to utilize AI because it's so like I use AI frequently in my in my job, but it's wrong a lot of the times. And I have to be able to know that it's wrong. So I have to know
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: the material that I'm having it summarized already ahead of time in order to be able to use it responsibly. I have to be able to look at it, analyze the the summarized information that it's provided me, and when it's wrong, say, hey. You're wrong, go back and do this again.
Callie: I 100% agree with you. I think that the key phrase there is use it responsibly. And I
Cole: Yeah.
Callie: think that the moment that we start saying, hey, this is the prompt, go ahead and take care of this for me, that's not using AI.
Cole: God, this is why my math teacher told me to show my work.
Callie: Yeah. And that's again why I go back to the calculator. Like it it's just like Cole's saying, like you have to have a general understanding of math and how it works in order for a calculator to do you any good. And I I think that the same thing is applied here. Like, yeah, Cole, I completely agree. I think that you have to know how to read and write.
Mecca: And and and here's part of what the the article talked about is that writing is it's not just that simple writing. There's so much more that comes into it, how you process your thoughts, how you put it down on paper, the spelling that you're using. And if we give up all of those components because AI can do it faster than we can, then it leaves us. really even more illiterate. It won't be one out of five or or a third. It'll be seventy-five to eighty percent of us who no longer can can you know write something on our own, think through a process on our own, figure out our feelings on our own. I mean, Callie, you talked about the Japanese deal where it's talking about and this is consistent with with elderly and people with dementia that the recommendation is to have them write something, journal, whatever you want to call it, but journal something every day because it keeps their brain connected and attached and doing something. And if we stop doing that with children?
Callie: But I think that there's even more to it that that we have to take into consideration, at least for that research. If like they did a couple of studies, I've seen a couple of studies that vary the length and how it's all done. But the best results, like, I want to say something like it, it knocked down your your chances of having any kind of cognitive decline, much less dementia, Alzheimer's, something along those lines. If you wrote like one page, but you have to physically write. This can't be, I'm gonna type into my iPad real quick. You have to physically write because it has something to do with the way that your brain sends messages to your hand, how your hand takes those words, how your brain is developing the plan for what it is that you're writing and spells everything correctly. There is no I I was thinking about it as I was reading this article. I would really be curious, mom, you would be y y y you might still be too young. But I'm I was sitting here thinking about when in Microsoft Word or in some word processor it came out that the squiggly red line underneath means that the word's misspelled. Like, did anybody did anybody panic about that and go, We're never gonna be able to spell ever again? Like no.
Mecca: No, but if you are never asked if you never see that red squiggly line because AI's written it all, you
Callie: Right.
Mecca: you won't even go there. You're you're
Callie: I mean, I I also think about like, especially from a Gen Z and forward perspective, they they don't know how to spell it. They don't even know, like they've never lived without a red squiggly line to say, Hey, your the word's wrong. Like if you didn't have that to put that pin in your brain to say, Hey Callie, you wanna rethink that? Okay,
Mecca: Mm-hmm.
Callie: Callie, sound it out. Let's go get with the program here. Like I think we either all look much smarter than we actually are, or like total and complete morons.
Cole: And but I mean, you know, that's also a tool. And so the first time I get a red squiggly line, but the next ten times I write it in an essay, I spell it correctly. Like it can nudge you in the right direction.
Callie: I still can't spell maintenance to save my life. And I know that I can't, but I have to sound it out maintenance. And I s
Mecca: It's convenience.
Cole: Necessary. Gets me every time.
Callie: See, like that's the thing. We all know them because we all have one. And so we have to consciously think about it and address that in real time, or choose to not use those words. And either of the those options, I think, is fine because it's actively making a choice. I am going to choose to spell maintenance wrong. I'm going to choose to slow down so that I can spell it out or sound it out so that I can get it correct. Or even and maybe I'm weird, which we know fine, but Even like when I say shoot, I cannot remember how to spell this freaking word. I can get it close enough. And then I get my little red squiggly line and press the like click on it so it will pop up. Did you actually mean maintenance? I am always looking to see which letter should I transpose? And I always have the i in a wrong spot. But I'm trying to absorb that. I'm failing, obviously, but I'm trying to absorb that so that I don't do it wrong every single time.
Cole: Exactly.
Mecca: I thought it was interesting in this article that one of the teachers that teaches an AP class has kind of taken AI out and because they're in advanced placement, making the students write, go back to that essay type of writing and do it. And again, and I I'm sure I sound like a broken record. This is because there's more benefit of that than just the writing. It's all of the things that come together that we're not going to get if we're giving that task to AI to do.
Cole: Sure. And I completely agree. Especially for an advanced placement English course, like you need to be able to utilize advanced English skills, not have something else do it for you. So that later, when you're trying to be more efficient, you've already got a mastery of the skills. Now you can use the tools that make you more efficient. But at the same time, at that school, those kids who are in that AP English class, they need to have a course teaching them how to use AI, how to do it responsibly,
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: how to review the results of whatever prompts that you how to write prompts effectively. They need both of those skill sets. And so that means that they that's an extra foundational skill. core class that needs to be at present that by and large I think is probably not.
Mecca: Yeah, I would agree with you.
Callie: There's a line in here that just kind of had me going, huh? What? But it says something about the line or about the tech industry leaders who see AI rejection as a form of educational malpractice.
Cole: Agree.
Callie: I
Mecca: I agree with the caveat.
Callie: Yeah.
Mecca: Yeah, I
Callie: Yeah.
Mecca: what you're saying, Cole, is correct. What they're saying is, but if you push it so far that you don't keep the other side of that, then that becomes a deficit too. So there's got to be some way of
Callie: Balancing.
Mecca: balancing those two things.
Cole: Sure, and that's what I'm saying, but it the the caveat here for me is there can be a conflict of interest and you can still be correct.
Mecca: Or you can be overly confident and ignore the other side of it. Which I think Callie that's where I went with you.
Cole: But but it
Callie: Yeah. It that's certainly where I went.
Cole: but that's not what they're saying.
Callie: Hold on, hold on. I think that this is a prime example of how we've got to be careful to not outsource our thinking. Because Cole, you can sit here all day long and say, hey, that's not what they're saying. But I could say the same thing back to you and say what how the way that you're interpreting it and you're reading it, that's not what they're saying. Because neither of us is the person who said it, right? And so I think that we've got to be using the things like this as examples to say, maybe. Both people are right. Maybe both people are wrong. What does this mean? Dig in deeper and and not just kind of settle for everything at face value. Well, this is how I assumed it, so that's what it is. Like, w we we have already learned that that's not productive.
Cole: Right, but you're implying that they are saying that we shouldn't teach reading and writing, and there's nothing in that statement that implies as much, is what I'm trying to say.
Callie: I d when d I didn't say that.
Mecca: No, but just to go to the next line, they point out that writing is already the leading use of AI in the workplace and that they argue there is no need to continue suffering through the task without help. So I still think that there
Cole: And in the workplace, that's correct. But in order to be able to utilize it in the workplace, you have to have the basic writing skills.
Mecca: I just felt like a and and you I understand what you're saying and that's a great point for you to bring up. But when I read that, to me it sounded like they were saying there's no reason for you not to use AI. It's the bet it's the better option and why are you even fighting us on this? This is the way to go. And and you may be absolutely right.
Cole: Well, let's take it back to the calculator then. If I give you fourteen algebra questions and tell you, well, you can use a calculator or you can do it by hand. You're gonna pick the calculator.
Mecca: Yeah, but I won't know how to do those math problems.
Callie: I was gonna say I'd have to do half and half. I need to write it out so that I can follow the process because I know that that's how it works. And I may use the calculator for d the simple math of it all, if you will, like once I have it narrowed down, but I couldn't only do it on a calculator.
Cole: Let me give you a different analogy. I ask you about a subject that you're not familiar with. Do you get out your phone and go to Google or do you go to the library and start doing research?
Callie: It depends on the subject. I I I mean we talked about this. Mom and I had this conversation last week. We were talking about an attorney for the New York Times, and I heard about it on a podcast. I didn't go and Google him. I didn't look him up. I went and grabbed a book about all of the lawsuits that he has been part of at the New York Times. I never once went to Google. And so I don't and and Cole, maybe this is just an example of Callie being the exception. Don't mind if I do. But
Mecca: Ha ha ha.
Callie: beyond that, I I think that I think that that for me just illustrates a use of AI as a tool, not the end all be all. I mean, w we've had conversations, mom. About okay, where did you learn that? Where did you get that? Did you ask Claude? Did Claude tell you that? And I want to know more. I want to have a better source than well, because Claude told me so. And so again,
Cole: Totally agree.
Callie: maybe I'm the exception here, but I don't think that you can just put this whole overarching thing on it. It's one or the other.
Mecca: I think it's a very valid point that we're having this discussion at all. That one interpretation is that tech is just promoting this, and the other interpretation is that tech may be overreaching on this. I think that's very valid thing for us to even be having a conversation because we're not the only ones having the conversation. So maybe we do have to step back and and and ask a few more questions, ask a few more details. You know, I think what's fascinating to me is you have educators throughout this article that were interviewed, and this one's all pro this, and this one's totally negative, and this one's incorporated a little bit here and a little bit there. There's such a variety of what's going on. And so I think particularly for AI, we're we need to be really cognizant of what is actually being said. Obviously, I I had a bias here that I thought, this is what they meant by that. And Cole, you heard it completely different. So I think that's really valid.
Callie: I don't disagree, but I I also think that I mean, kind of the grain of salt mentality, right? Like you can sit here all day long and make a case for the AI the rejection of AI as a form of educational malpractice, right? But what if you took the exact opposite of that? The use of AI could be seen as a form of educational malpractice. So I feel like you've got to You've got to take it with a grain of salt either way, because the opposite is still true, too. Like, I literally went and looked up the definition of malpractice just to, I mean, like conceptually, I got it, I thought, but I wanted to confirm because I was really curious what did they mean by that? How, how should I be interpreting that? And it the definition from Merriam-Webster says. Malpractice is when a professional fails to use the proper skill or standard of care, causing injury or loss to a client or patient. And that's when I started flipping the whole thing around. It's not just the rejection of AI is a form of malpractice. The the sole dedicated use of AI, I think, is just as much a form of malpractice.
Cole: Agree.
Callie: That's why I just don't think that we can blindly, boldly agree, yes, only one is sh this one, without bringing the other part of the conversation into it. The other piece of the same pie.
Mecca: think that's our job to do here.
Callie: Mm-hmm. I agree.
Mecca: It's it again, it fascinates me that the ideas here and the perceptions here are so very varied even within the same community. I mean here's one that says scholars who study writing are rarely reflexively opposed to AI. So that sounds really good.
Callie: I just don't think you can take any one piece of it. You have to take it on the whole. A hammer banging in a nail is great, but when you realize that the back of it is for pulling those nails, that's also great.
Mecca: Good.
Callie: Like it's using
Mecca: So
Callie: the tool properly, efficiently.
Mecca: So Cole, you you brought up that you didn't think that we would we might not be able to use the same ideas that we might need to come up with new ideas of how to pursue this or how to combine it. Is that fair?
Cole: Yeah, I I mean, you know me. I'm I'm so much in favor of our current educational system. No, I very much think that we are in desperate need of innovation in particularly the American education system, but especially around critical thinking, responsible use of technology. I mean, those are things that from my own memory of school, I'm sure it's it's been a while. I'm sure they're different now, but I see a lot of irresponsible use of technology regularly. I mean daily. All you gotta do is go to YouTube or Facebook or TikTok or whatever, and you can
Callie: Anywhere.
Cole: see people using technology extremely irresponsibly. And sometimes it's in it's it's in it's in good fun. Okay, you're not necessarily harming anyone, but there are a lot of times where that's not necessarily the case. And so I think that well, I've I've been saying this since I was in school and I still think it is the case. I think our education system needs a massive overhaul. It's not going to be cheap, but there in my opinion are lots of things that we're spending money on that we could divert away from into, you know, our kids. Literally the most valuable resource we have. Do I know what those new teaching techniques will be? No. Do I
Callie: Damn it, Cole.
Cole: even have an idea as to the perfect solution? Not even close. There probably isn't one. But I don't know that we're really even looking that hard. It doesn't seem like it to me. It seems like there are two camps. well, just use AI, or no, you can't use AI. You have to you have to learn cursive and
Callie: Be afraid of it.
Cole: and and be afraid of it. When in reality the answer is somewhere between those two, because both are important.
Mecca: I'm just sitting here wondering if AI could teach us critical thinking.
Callie: You know, it's funny. As Cole was going through his intro portion, he's talking about, you know, I don't know how to do this. I was like, I wonder if AI could help us, if it could point
Mecca: Yeah.
Callie: us in the right direction.
Mecca: I mean, there there's a there's a thought process there that just assumes AI is going to, you know, write this for you and solve the problem. But maybe we're not doing the right prompt.
Cole: Yeah, because I'm sure you could go to AI and say, hey, could you give me a list of 10 questions that don't necessarily provide me the answers, but questions for me to think about that will help improve my critical thinking skills. And it will
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: access the entire internet to find as many examples as it can and will probably smash a bunch of them together and spit it out for you. And some of them may be really good and some of them may not.
Mecca: We just have got to start thinking outside the box on all of this. Recognizing I and and and maybe that starts with recognizing what are the real critical components, like being able to, you know, have critical thinking, like being able to communicate and and write in some manner and think through those processes, you know. We need to redefine what are those basic things that are needed and then see how we can bring AI in to really develop those. I think that's a fascinating idea. Okay, ask AI how to increase my critical thinking. It it's kind of turning the question around. Interesting.
Callie: I also think that there's beyond beyond the grammar and spelling aspects of all of this, I think that Think that there's something to be learned, that there are skills, traits, frustrations to be learned and to how to deal with those things when you're up at eleven forty seven at night trying to write your paper, AI or not, having to go through all of this because you're trying to do a good job. And I think that there are, like I said, skills, habits, Even just processing of emotions that has to be done and take place in those situations out of frustration, out of fear. I don't want to fail. I don't want to fail my English class. I gotta get this paper done. I'm so freaking tired. I just wanna go to bed. I don't wanna do this paper, but my teacher's gonna be mad or my mom's gonna be mad, or my classmates are gonna laugh at me and make fun of I'm gonna have to retake English, whatever it is, like whatever your motivation is. Like, I think that especially as a young, impressionable mind in school. We've talked about men don't develop their like their brains aren't fully developed until twenty six. So in those like prime years between being a little kid to being in graduate school, I think that we've gotta be feeding our mind opportunity to Fail and be frustrated and come up short and be proud. And like all of these different things, we've got to give ourselves an opportunity to experience these specific lessons that life is needs to teach us before we're 45 and our boss has asked us to do something that we just don't want to do. And like there's reasons behind all of this. You need to learn life's lessons somehow.
Cole: I agree.
Mecca: I read an article today, another one, and it's talking about people are renting moms. They're actually companies that have been developed by a couple of individuals so that you send your kid to college and you hire this woman and some of them are just doing laundry for them. I nearly fell out of my chair when it said some of them are going to clean their dorm rooms for them. And I thought, holy hell no. But you know, sometimes it's a care package or sometimes it's you know, to get to the doctor because they've, you know, got a bad cold or s a and part of that I can understand, but part of that I was just like, Okay. Callie, that part of there's got to be some failure there. I mean, that how do you learn this if you always have a mom? Who's going to take care of you even when you go to college?
Callie: These are life's lessons that you need to have an opportunity to learn.
Mecca: Yeah, and you're right. We need some failure. And so, ooh, Cole, I I now that I'm turning it around,
Callie: Mm-hmm.
Mecca: can can AI teach us failure too?
Cole: Well In its current state. I don't know how to really address that question. I've and maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel like I've been put in the position that AI is the answer and that's not my position.
Mecca: I think AI is part of the answer.
Callie: Yeah, I think yeah, I I agree. I think
Cole: I agree.
Callie: that for a minute w your atimacy that what is it? That AI rejection is a form of educational malpractice kind of put you in that boat. But I don't think that you have to stay there.
Cole: It it doesn't, but that's that's like saying, kids should learn math is the same as me saying they don't need to learn how to spell. Like not teaching kids how to use AI is educational malpractice. So is not teaching them how to do math or reading and writing.
Callie: R right. But I think that the so is was left off of the initial until we brought it up and that's why you ended up in that boat. I'm not saying that
Mecca: Yeah.
Callie: that's how you think. You don't have to stay there. You don't have to be there.
Mecca: It may not have even been where you intended to be.
Callie: Right. But it's a
Mecca: It's what we heard.
Callie: right.
Mecca: So I I I think you're I am not intending to put on you that AI is the sole answer, but I do think AI is part of the answer.
Cole: I agree.
Callie: Yes.
Cole: I I don't know if AI can teach us failure. I know that AI currently fails regularly. I deal with it regularly. And so that means go back and try again. So
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: in that per from that perspective, I guess. I don't know if that is an adequate enough failure to teach you failure, but I think that there are lots of different ways to fail. And I don't think that AI in its current state. Is capable of Fulfilling all of those roles. And do I think at some point AI could get advanced enough where it may no longer be adequate at teaching us failure in that specific manner that I'm I I've just referenced? L likely if it continues to advance at the rate that it is supposedly advancing right now. But again, I don't think it is the sole answer.
Mecca: Yeah. I I think that if you're going to only rely on that that you're gonna fail, not in a good way. But it somehow those those things have to come together. We have to te be teaching both.
Cole: I agree.
Callie: Yes. I and and that I think that that line is where everything gets hung up for me because how much technological assistance can we accept before that assistance becomes substitution? Using it an AI to help you think, fine, versus using an AI so that you don't have to think.
Mecca: That's different.
Callie: I think it is different. And I think that it's going to end up being a really fine line that is going to look in a different place for everybody, right? This is I I think it's going to look different for everybody. I don't think that there's a right or a wrong answer until it comes to you. There's a right and a wrong answer for you.
Mecca: Which means that if you're trying to decide how AI can be used within a school, it's also not going to be a a hard answer. It's not going to be this is the this is the rule. It we're going to have to use some discretion and we're going to have to use some experience and and experimenting. And and it won't be the same for every kid. But we've got to be again cognizant of using it, cognizant of how it's being used, and of all of those other things that need to be unique or developed independently from AI. That's how I want to say that. Now, I mean we've said all of that and we've talked all of that and then our weird thought really is about what I would consider AI taking over or destroying us is is part of that conversation.
Cole: Yeah, so I saw a a couple of these this week, and maybe one of them was last week. Callie sent one that is an interview w with Anderson Cooper and a former anthropic developer. and I've after listening to the conversation, it's it's been several days, so maybe I need to go back and do it again, but I feel like it was blown a little bit out of proportion because to me what I got from him is yes, it's very possible. maybe even likely that AI will wipe out humanity within the next ten years. If I remember right, it was closer to the, yeah, it's certainly possible that AI could wipe out humanity in the next ten years. Not AI is definitely going to wipe out humanity in the next ten years. There was another example. there was a a a UN official, the United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk spoke on AI last week, I believe, and warned that advanced artificial intelligence poses an existential risk to humanity and called for urgent binding government regulation. So essentially he talks about things like, well, it's going to accelerate these already out of control wars. it's going to get out of its testing environments and take control of everything. It's going to cut off, What was the word he used? it wasn't essential, but it was really close to essential. but i it like cut off essential services through its takeover of different systems and of massive human potential for massive human rights violation. Basically this this big call for international regulation of advanced AI, which I mean, don't I don't know that I agree with his full reasoning behind it. I think it sounds to me at least a little bit outlandish. Regardless, I think he's right. I do think that there is a need for international, like worldwide regulation of hey, this is what you can't use these things for. Like a G a Geneva Convention for AI, if you will.
Mecca: There you go. That makes sense. I I mean, y you talked about some examples like it getting out of its sandbox or it taking over this or it getting into and it's done all of those things. So we do need some kind of agreement and control. And I think that's where yeah,
Callie: Risk mitigation.
Mecca: yeah, I think that's where we're at right now is that we're so afraid that China's gonna get ahead of us or this you know, that company's gonna find out more than we and so it's it's just this big competition that we're all afraid of losing.
Callie: Before we've any defined
Mecca: But we're not
Callie: the rules.
Mecca: Yeah. Yeah, we
Callie: Of the game.
Mecca: and and so I hear what you s you say, Cole, that you don't think we're talking about annihilation of the human race.
Cole: Not in ten years. Do I think we can advance technology to the point that we wipe ourselves out? Yes. I don't think it is
Callie: Do I
Cole: likely to happen specifically with AI in the next decade.
Callie: Do I hope that we're smart enough to address this before it's too late? Yeah, I do. And I'm and and maybe, maybe this is the cynic and the nihilist in me coming out, which doesn't happen very often, so but still, I hesitate about international rules, guidelines, whatever you want to call it. Because I think that our societies are so drastically different and divided right now. Like I don't want ha ha how how's it decided? Okay, we the AI Geneva Convention are going to set these rules. Well, you've got every day somebody, especially in this country, saying, We're not abiding by that. We're doing this differently. Like we don't want to have to answer to you. So how are we going to put guardrails in place globally that everybody can get on board with and agree with? I feel like there's going to
Cole: Right.
Callie: be a time deficiency that we don't have available. It's gonna take so much time to get any kind of rules put into place that it's going to be too freaking late. Like Maybe we need to baby step these things it the same way you eat an elephant, right? One bite at a time. So maybe that can't be this big international convention saying these are the rules and we're gonna not police you to abide by them. I mean, look at the UN, who's specifically who we're talking about saying this. Like n the policing of anything that is c comes out of there is It's kind of like the flock cameras. If you want to call it admit guilt, okay, cool. Now we can now we can get you in trouble for it. But there's not a ton of umph behind that. So I think that we need
Mecca: Yeah, but
Callie: to take different steps, even on a more granular individual level, to say, Hey, we gotta we gotta at least start here. I think that you can see that to some extent happening in tangentically related spaces in the social media ban for teenagers in Australia. We know it may not be perfect, but we gotta do something. And it's gonna be really uncomfortable for these teens who are doing it and having to abide by it after they've had it and now we've taken it away. But we gotta do something. I think that you can see it in the way that the the United Kingdom has gone about saying, hey, We're not doing any AI in this, this, this, and this capacity. We have put different rules in regulation. It can only be used in these formats or in these different applications. Like, it is the rule perfect? Absolutely not. But progress over perfection, right?
Mecca: Start somewhere. Yeah.
Cole: I get what you're saying, but at the same time, if there's not like a broad ba like we can agree that internationally murder is frowned upon, at the very least. Like
Callie: Yeah.
Cole: not a lot of places you can go where you can just do murders and it's not against the law of wherever you're at. N not not that it's necessarily enforceable in every every place, but but still.
Callie: Two murders.
Cole: But like in and I'm not saying that you need to have this giant decade-long convention of all of the different nations to iron out every specific rule, but I do think that it's a good idea to say, hey, everybody, let's get together, let's set a baseline. We're not gonna do chemical weapons, we're not gonna do cyber attacks of some certain kind or whatever. And so we're all gonna have to hold each other accountable because if you're building a super weapon and I'm building a super weapon and you say, well, I'm gonna tie my super weapon's hands behind its back and I don't, whose super weapon is probably gonna win?
Callie: Why do I gotta be the loser?
Cole: Fine, mine is the one I'm gonna tie mine behind.
Mecca: Yeah.
Callie: I I I see what you're saying. I just like I look at something like global warming as a another example of if we didn't do anything as individual independent nations, countries, peoples, we would be nowhere.
Cole: I think that's
Callie: Like we would
Cole: a great example of there not being a cohesive approach to it, which is why we're not making the progress that we s are supposed to be.
Callie: Right. I but I think that those are the guidelines that you have to work within.
Mecca: But you have to think that there was a point in time but there was a point in time that a a group of nations did agree on global warming and steps to go and what they were gonna do to reduce this and that has fallen apart. And so
Cole: Because not everybody was following those same rules, because not everyone was involved.
Callie: Right, and the policing of that is impossible. That's my point.
Mecca: Because there are no teeth to any of that.
Callie: Right. And so I while I
Mecca: Yeah.
Callie: think that having a collective go about and start on this, yes, absolutely needs to happen. I do not think we can only count on that and everybody else can just wait for that to happen. I think individually, on a much smaller level, we as countries, communities, citizens of the world have to start addressing this at a much smaller, more granular level while that other is happening too. I just feel like this whole conversation tonight is it feels like it's been a this or that, but both can be and are true, good, right, necessary, you know? I'm Go ahead.
Mecca: So so where do we agree? AI can be good that
Callie: There a whole bunch of stuff needs to be happening.
Mecca: we don't really know what it is.
Callie: I think that
Cole: AI is a useful tool. AI needs to be used responsibly. AI is not the only tool.
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: AI has the potential to become very dangerous. Because it has the potential to be very dangerous, we should have both localized and global.
Callie: Attempts at regulating
Cole: Regulations or at least agreements to say we're not going to use this tool in these specific ways.
Mecca: Gosh.
Callie: Do you think that that becomes an and maybe this isn't right, but we're in the weird thoughts, so I'm just gonna go out with it. If all of the governments came out and said, hey, and maybe TikTok is an example, but if all of the governments came out and said, Hey, all of you LLM makers, these are the rules that you have to abide by. So go fix your shit. Like, is there a is that a an impending on their right to do business, their right to make in the free speech of the creators, like of saying, Hey, I think that this would be valuable. I think that this would be interesting. I want this to be out there. I want people to have access to this. Like is there an infringement there that takes place?
Cole: Let's take that exact same question and replace AI with nuclear weapons.
Mecca: So the difference that I see there, Cole, is that AI is private companies developing this, not necessarily governments where governments would be developing nuclear weapons.
Cole: Right, but it let's say I came up with a company and I wanted to develop nuclear weapons because I found someone who wanted to buy nuclear weapons, but you have regulations that prevent me from doing so. You're infringing upon my right to do business.
Callie: But isn't that happening already? I mean, Boeing has specific lines
Cole: That's kind of what I'm saying.
Callie: and everything that they have to follow. I mean, like all of these people who make all of those parts have specific lines and rules and regulations that they have to follow. And it's all still happening.
Mecca: And somebody's breaking those rules all of the time.
Callie: All the time.
Cole: Th that that's kind of my point.
Mecca: So yeah.
Callie: I just I don't know how I don't know how that works from a Department of Justice standpoint. Are you allowed to go in and say, Hey, you can't do this with your LLM? And I think that we we see that in again in multiple ways and facets happening currently. That's why All of big tech was at the presidential inauguration. We wanna get in on this on how it's being used and how it's being used against us and how we're being represented and what the rules and regulations are going to come out as. Like we wanna be on the forefront of those conversations, not the tail end to just have it enforced.
Cole: I mean, we'd kind of already do that in every other industry. I mean food, drugs, firearm manufacturing, vehicle manufacturing, like
Callie: So do you think there are gonna be people out there who are lobbying for unregulated use of AI?
Mecca: God. Yes.
Cole: Yes.
Callie: Yeah.
Mecca: I do.
Cole: There already are
Callie: That makes me so sad.
Mecca: Well, on that note, let's go to a good news story.
Cole: Let's get a good news story.
Callie: I don't wanna do it now.
Mecca: Come on, you can do it.
Callie: Okay, okay. I have a really great example of technology being used exactly the ways in which we hope. There is a 13 year old boy, Zac Waters from Utah, who got into 3D printing after watching all of these videos on YouTube about it. Instead of just printing toys and knickknacks or random things for himself or his friends, he found a nonprofit called Make Good and That actually creates 3D printed assisted devices for people with disabilities, right? So this isn't like a quick overnight project. Zac decided to spend his summer making a custom wheelchair for a 21-month-old little girl. He spent nearly 300 hours designing it, printing pieces, testing it, and assembling it. He even customized it specifically for her. It has pink accents because that's her favorite color. It's got a removable cup holder and tray and room for additional medical equipment or adjustable head and foot rest so that the chair can grow with her because she's 21 months old. when asked why he did it, Zac said, You guys, my heart just freaking melts for this kid. Because it combines my two favorite things in life 3D printing and helping people in need. It just makes sense. I'm in love. He's so cute. Yeah.
Mecca: He is thirteen with that type of philosophy. That is awesome.
Callie: Yeah, he he took something he was already interested in, learned how to use the technology, and figured out how to use that skill to make somebody else's life better, easier. I just I hope that we're also lucky at some point in our lives to figure out that our individual skills have really incredible impact when we use them to benefit other people. We could all take a couple of notes from Zac.
Mecca: Yeah. I it it really if you stop and you think about this, he's a thirteen year old, so what's that seventh or eighth grade, who took the majority of his summer to do something that he thought was fun, but to the benefit of somebody else. That philosophy is gosh, if we could have that philosophy in the majority of people, this world would be different. We wouldn't be talking about AI and being out of its sandbox because we'd be doing it for the benefit of people.
Callie: I think we would be having that conversation. I think that it would look different. I think
Mecca: Okay.
Callie: that it would be less scary and more approachable.
Cole: I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that AI is not being developed for the benefit of people.
Mecca: And if that's what I said, that's not what I meant to say.
Callie: I think that again, it's the other side of the same coin. If AI is only being developed to benefit us, it it would be selling what everything everybody is doing and what's coming out in that realm way short. I just think there's more to it than that.
Cole: Don't disagree.
Mecca: Not a simple answer.
Callie: No. No. It it isn't a simple answer and I hope that we can as a society, from individuals all the way up to people of the world as one whole group. I I hope that we can put more stock in the long-term consequences. It goes back to everything else that we've been talking about, this whole freaking show. Not today's episode, this podcast as a whole. If we only try and treat the symptoms and never treat the cause, we're never going to improve. Never a measurable amount that would be life altering.
Mecca: Go and do great things, children of mine. Do them with kindness. I love ya.
Callie: And your brain. Love y'all.
Cole: Love you too.
Cole: You know, my response to that would be AI is here. It's not going anywhere. It's a tool that in order for the next generation to be not just successful, but even capable of the jobs that they're going to be expected to do, they're gonna have to be able to use it. I don't think we do ourselves any favors by trying to figure out how to keep it out of education. I completely agree that kids need opportunities to develop critical thinking skills, and writing is a really efficient way to do that. But I'm not convinced that simply finding some compromise between the old way of teaching and the new technology is actually going to get us where we need to go. We're entering territory we've never really dealt with before. We have a technology that can do a lot of the things we've Traditionally use school work to teach us how to do. So I think the bigger question is, what do we replace those methods with? There are other ways to develop critical thinking, problem solving and judgment. We just haven't figured out what all of those new methods look like yet. And I think that's the challenge. We need to make sure that we're preparing kids to think critically without simultaneously handicapping them in a world where AI is going to be everywhere.
Callie: You know, when I read this article, my first thought was, is AI assisted writing becoming the calculator of the writing world? Because when calculators came along, we didn't decide that kids no longer needed to understand math. We had to figure out how to use that technology without losing the underlying skills. And that made me start thinking about this beyond just school. There's research coming out of Japan that is looking at how physical activities like writing, pen to paper, are helping maintain cognitive function as we age. And it raised the question for me: what happens 20 years from now if we've spent our entire lives outsourcing more and more of our thinking to machines? I'm not worried about AI writing an email for me. I'm worried about what happens if we get so accustomed to having something else formulate all of our thoughts, solve all of our problems, and make decisions that we stop exercising those abilities ourselves. Because maybe this isn't ultimately a conversation about what we're taking away from kids. Maybe it's a conversation about what we're potentially giving up as human beings if we're really not careful. Welcome to Two Millennials and Mom. I'm Callie.
Cole: I'm Cole.
Mecca: And I'm mom. Callie, I think that calculator part is really significant because you look at so many people today who can't do math because they've always done it with a calculator.
Cole: Well I mean but here's the thing.
Callie: Do you
Cole: It's it's not that straightforward. There's there there's
Callie: Yeah.
Cole: there's more nuance to it than that. If you don't understand the mathematical concepts, how are you going to apply them to a calculator?
Callie: Right. Well, and there were still plenty of people who couldn't do math long before the calculator came around. And I also think about it in terms of you always had those teachers saying, You're not always gonna have a calculator in your pocket, and then you kinda giggle and you're like, ha ha showed you. And
Mecca: Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Callie: I think that that same kind of thing could be applied here to this line of thinking about AI. You're not always gonna have access to whatever large language model, learning language learning model, whatever they call whatever they are, LLMs.
Mecca: L L
Callie: And I think that that's not true. I and maybe it's maybe it looks different as it evolves. into more everyday life? Maybe we teach ourselves to address it differently and to hold ourselves accountable in different ways because we're so good at that. So excited. But I just wonder if if we start continue, because I think to some extent several of us are very guilty of it. If we continue outsourcing our thinking, at what point does that become Detrimental to the point that we can't recover.
Mecca: Well, I think you're right. I I think that we maybe have to find a new way. It's not gonna be just you have to keep it out of school, because I don't think that's right either. I think you're absolutely on point when you say this is going to be the future of any job that you have is going to be inclusive of AI. So you have to use it and educate on it, but you can't just solely use it.
Cole: Sure. And
Mecca: Particularly.
Cole: it's like we've said before, you've got to educate people on how to use it responsibly. But I want to back up to something Callie said a minute ago about accountability. Cause one of the things that really struck me from this article is the one-third of American students who have insufficient literacy skills. So we're going to take away tools that can help them and tell them that they have to do these things, but we're not going to teach them how to read and write.
Callie: think, Cole, I think that there's still more nuance to that because I would
Cole: sure.
Callie: suspect that if you were to go back and look at the historical data, that one third of American students who don't have the ability to read and write is probably the lowest that that has ever been.
Mecca: Well, I don't know if that's true or not.
Callie: In recent history, in the last hundred years. You think?
Mecca: I don't know. I don't know. That's worth a Google.
Cole: In eighteen seventy, roughly twenty percent of the total adult population was illiterate. In nineteen thirty the illiteracy rate dropped to roughly four percent.
Callie: Wow, that surprises me. According to who?
Cole: By nineteen seventy one, the US Census Bureau recorded a peak literacy rate of approximately ninety-nine percent. Currently, according to the National Literacy Institute, roughly twenty one percent, one in five, are considered functionally illiterate or struggle with basic reading tasks.
Callie: So we've got a discrepancy there. Thirty-three percent versus twenty percent, twenty-one. sure. Okay.
Cole: Well, this is adults, the other is students.
Callie: Interesting.
Cole: Reading level data indicates that fifty four percent of American adults read below the equivalent of a sixth grade reading level.
Mecca: I would say that's been pretty consistent. Sixth grade I think would be high. But your point of if you know that you have this level of illiteracy, you certainly don't stop teaching.
Callie: Yeah.
Mecca: to that and and AI is not going to
Cole: Yeah. You have to be able to read to utilize AI because it's so like I use AI frequently in my in my job, but it's wrong a lot of the times. And I have to be able to know that it's wrong. So I have to know
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: the material that I'm having it summarized already ahead of time in order to be able to use it responsibly. I have to be able to look at it, analyze the the summarized information that it's provided me, and when it's wrong, say, hey. You're wrong, go back and do this again.
Callie: I 100% agree with you. I think that the key phrase there is use it responsibly. And I
Cole: Yeah.
Callie: think that the moment that we start saying, hey, this is the prompt, go ahead and take care of this for me, that's not using AI.
Cole: God, this is why my math teacher told me to show my work.
Callie: Yeah. And that's again why I go back to the calculator. Like it it's just like Cole's saying, like you have to have a general understanding of math and how it works in order for a calculator to do you any good. And I I think that the same thing is applied here. Like, yeah, Cole, I completely agree. I think that you have to know how to read and write.
Mecca: And and and here's part of what the the article talked about is that writing is it's not just that simple writing. There's so much more that comes into it, how you process your thoughts, how you put it down on paper, the spelling that you're using. And if we give up all of those components because AI can do it faster than we can, then it leaves us. really even more illiterate. It won't be one out of five or or a third. It'll be seventy-five to eighty percent of us who no longer can can you know write something on our own, think through a process on our own, figure out our feelings on our own. I mean, Callie, you talked about the Japanese deal where it's talking about and this is consistent with with elderly and people with dementia that the recommendation is to have them write something, journal, whatever you want to call it, but journal something every day because it keeps their brain connected and attached and doing something. And if we stop doing that with children?
Callie: But I think that there's even more to it that that we have to take into consideration, at least for that research. If like they did a couple of studies, I've seen a couple of studies that vary the length and how it's all done. But the best results, like, I want to say something like it, it knocked down your your chances of having any kind of cognitive decline, much less dementia, Alzheimer's, something along those lines. If you wrote like one page, but you have to physically write. This can't be, I'm gonna type into my iPad real quick. You have to physically write because it has something to do with the way that your brain sends messages to your hand, how your hand takes those words, how your brain is developing the plan for what it is that you're writing and spells everything correctly. There is no I I was thinking about it as I was reading this article. I would really be curious, mom, you would be y y y you might still be too young. But I'm I was sitting here thinking about when in Microsoft Word or in some word processor it came out that the squiggly red line underneath means that the word's misspelled. Like, did anybody did anybody panic about that and go, We're never gonna be able to spell ever again? Like no.
Mecca: No, but if you are never asked if you never see that red squiggly line because AI's written it all, you
Callie: Right.
Mecca: you won't even go there. You're you're
Callie: I mean, I I also think about like, especially from a Gen Z and forward perspective, they they don't know how to spell it. They don't even know, like they've never lived without a red squiggly line to say, Hey, your the word's wrong. Like if you didn't have that to put that pin in your brain to say, Hey Callie, you wanna rethink that? Okay,
Mecca: Mm-hmm.
Callie: Callie, sound it out. Let's go get with the program here. Like I think we either all look much smarter than we actually are, or like total and complete morons.
Cole: And but I mean, you know, that's also a tool. And so the first time I get a red squiggly line, but the next ten times I write it in an essay, I spell it correctly. Like it can nudge you in the right direction.
Callie: I still can't spell maintenance to save my life. And I know that I can't, but I have to sound it out maintenance. And I s
Mecca: It's convenience.
Cole: Necessary. Gets me every time.
Callie: See, like that's the thing. We all know them because we all have one. And so we have to consciously think about it and address that in real time, or choose to not use those words. And either of the those options, I think, is fine because it's actively making a choice. I am going to choose to spell maintenance wrong. I'm going to choose to slow down so that I can spell it out or sound it out so that I can get it correct. Or even and maybe I'm weird, which we know fine, but Even like when I say shoot, I cannot remember how to spell this freaking word. I can get it close enough. And then I get my little red squiggly line and press the like click on it so it will pop up. Did you actually mean maintenance? I am always looking to see which letter should I transpose? And I always have the i in a wrong spot. But I'm trying to absorb that. I'm failing, obviously, but I'm trying to absorb that so that I don't do it wrong every single time.
Cole: Exactly.
Mecca: I thought it was interesting in this article that one of the teachers that teaches an AP class has kind of taken AI out and because they're in advanced placement, making the students write, go back to that essay type of writing and do it. And again, and I I'm sure I sound like a broken record. This is because there's more benefit of that than just the writing. It's all of the things that come together that we're not going to get if we're giving that task to AI to do.
Cole: Sure. And I completely agree. Especially for an advanced placement English course, like you need to be able to utilize advanced English skills, not have something else do it for you. So that later, when you're trying to be more efficient, you've already got a mastery of the skills. Now you can use the tools that make you more efficient. But at the same time, at that school, those kids who are in that AP English class, they need to have a course teaching them how to use AI, how to do it responsibly,
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: how to review the results of whatever prompts that you how to write prompts effectively. They need both of those skill sets. And so that means that they that's an extra foundational skill. core class that needs to be at present that by and large I think is probably not.
Mecca: Yeah, I would agree with you.
Callie: There's a line in here that just kind of had me going, huh? What? But it says something about the line or about the tech industry leaders who see AI rejection as a form of educational malpractice.
Cole: Agree.
Callie: I
Mecca: I agree with the caveat.
Callie: Yeah.
Mecca: Yeah, I
Callie: Yeah.
Mecca: what you're saying, Cole, is correct. What they're saying is, but if you push it so far that you don't keep the other side of that, then that becomes a deficit too. So there's got to be some way of
Callie: Balancing.
Mecca: balancing those two things.
Cole: Sure, and that's what I'm saying, but it the the caveat here for me is there can be a conflict of interest and you can still be correct.
Mecca: Or you can be overly confident and ignore the other side of it. Which I think Callie that's where I went with you.
Cole: But but it
Callie: Yeah. It that's certainly where I went.
Cole: but that's not what they're saying.
Callie: Hold on, hold on. I think that this is a prime example of how we've got to be careful to not outsource our thinking. Because Cole, you can sit here all day long and say, hey, that's not what they're saying. But I could say the same thing back to you and say what how the way that you're interpreting it and you're reading it, that's not what they're saying. Because neither of us is the person who said it, right? And so I think that we've got to be using the things like this as examples to say, maybe. Both people are right. Maybe both people are wrong. What does this mean? Dig in deeper and and not just kind of settle for everything at face value. Well, this is how I assumed it, so that's what it is. Like, w we we have already learned that that's not productive.
Cole: Right, but you're implying that they are saying that we shouldn't teach reading and writing, and there's nothing in that statement that implies as much, is what I'm trying to say.
Callie: I d when d I didn't say that.
Mecca: No, but just to go to the next line, they point out that writing is already the leading use of AI in the workplace and that they argue there is no need to continue suffering through the task without help. So I still think that there
Cole: And in the workplace, that's correct. But in order to be able to utilize it in the workplace, you have to have the basic writing skills.
Mecca: I just felt like a and and you I understand what you're saying and that's a great point for you to bring up. But when I read that, to me it sounded like they were saying there's no reason for you not to use AI. It's the bet it's the better option and why are you even fighting us on this? This is the way to go. And and you may be absolutely right.
Cole: Well, let's take it back to the calculator then. If I give you fourteen algebra questions and tell you, well, you can use a calculator or you can do it by hand. You're gonna pick the calculator.
Mecca: Yeah, but I won't know how to do those math problems.
Callie: I was gonna say I'd have to do half and half. I need to write it out so that I can follow the process because I know that that's how it works. And I may use the calculator for d the simple math of it all, if you will, like once I have it narrowed down, but I couldn't only do it on a calculator.
Cole: Let me give you a different analogy. I ask you about a subject that you're not familiar with. Do you get out your phone and go to Google or do you go to the library and start doing research?
Callie: It depends on the subject. I I I mean we talked about this. Mom and I had this conversation last week. We were talking about an attorney for the New York Times, and I heard about it on a podcast. I didn't go and Google him. I didn't look him up. I went and grabbed a book about all of the lawsuits that he has been part of at the New York Times. I never once went to Google. And so I don't and and Cole, maybe this is just an example of Callie being the exception. Don't mind if I do. But
Mecca: Ha ha ha.
Callie: beyond that, I I think that I think that that for me just illustrates a use of AI as a tool, not the end all be all. I mean, w we've had conversations, mom. About okay, where did you learn that? Where did you get that? Did you ask Claude? Did Claude tell you that? And I want to know more. I want to have a better source than well, because Claude told me so. And so again,
Cole: Totally agree.
Callie: maybe I'm the exception here, but I don't think that you can just put this whole overarching thing on it. It's one or the other.
Mecca: I think it's a very valid point that we're having this discussion at all. That one interpretation is that tech is just promoting this, and the other interpretation is that tech may be overreaching on this. I think that's very valid thing for us to even be having a conversation because we're not the only ones having the conversation. So maybe we do have to step back and and and ask a few more questions, ask a few more details. You know, I think what's fascinating to me is you have educators throughout this article that were interviewed, and this one's all pro this, and this one's totally negative, and this one's incorporated a little bit here and a little bit there. There's such a variety of what's going on. And so I think particularly for AI, we're we need to be really cognizant of what is actually being said. Obviously, I I had a bias here that I thought, this is what they meant by that. And Cole, you heard it completely different. So I think that's really valid.
Callie: I don't disagree, but I I also think that I mean, kind of the grain of salt mentality, right? Like you can sit here all day long and make a case for the AI the rejection of AI as a form of educational malpractice, right? But what if you took the exact opposite of that? The use of AI could be seen as a form of educational malpractice. So I feel like you've got to You've got to take it with a grain of salt either way, because the opposite is still true, too. Like, I literally went and looked up the definition of malpractice just to, I mean, like conceptually, I got it, I thought, but I wanted to confirm because I was really curious what did they mean by that? How, how should I be interpreting that? And it the definition from Merriam-Webster says. Malpractice is when a professional fails to use the proper skill or standard of care, causing injury or loss to a client or patient. And that's when I started flipping the whole thing around. It's not just the rejection of AI is a form of malpractice. The the sole dedicated use of AI, I think, is just as much a form of malpractice.
Cole: Agree.
Callie: That's why I just don't think that we can blindly, boldly agree, yes, only one is sh this one, without bringing the other part of the conversation into it. The other piece of the same pie.
Mecca: think that's our job to do here.
Callie: Mm-hmm. I agree.
Mecca: It's it again, it fascinates me that the ideas here and the perceptions here are so very varied even within the same community. I mean here's one that says scholars who study writing are rarely reflexively opposed to AI. So that sounds really good.
Callie: I just don't think you can take any one piece of it. You have to take it on the whole. A hammer banging in a nail is great, but when you realize that the back of it is for pulling those nails, that's also great.
Mecca: Good.
Callie: Like it's using
Mecca: So
Callie: the tool properly, efficiently.
Mecca: So Cole, you you brought up that you didn't think that we would we might not be able to use the same ideas that we might need to come up with new ideas of how to pursue this or how to combine it. Is that fair?
Cole: Yeah, I I mean, you know me. I'm I'm so much in favor of our current educational system. No, I very much think that we are in desperate need of innovation in particularly the American education system, but especially around critical thinking, responsible use of technology. I mean, those are things that from my own memory of school, I'm sure it's it's been a while. I'm sure they're different now, but I see a lot of irresponsible use of technology regularly. I mean daily. All you gotta do is go to YouTube or Facebook or TikTok or whatever, and you can
Callie: Anywhere.
Cole: see people using technology extremely irresponsibly. And sometimes it's in it's it's in it's in good fun. Okay, you're not necessarily harming anyone, but there are a lot of times where that's not necessarily the case. And so I think that well, I've I've been saying this since I was in school and I still think it is the case. I think our education system needs a massive overhaul. It's not going to be cheap, but there in my opinion are lots of things that we're spending money on that we could divert away from into, you know, our kids. Literally the most valuable resource we have. Do I know what those new teaching techniques will be? No. Do I
Callie: Damn it, Cole.
Cole: even have an idea as to the perfect solution? Not even close. There probably isn't one. But I don't know that we're really even looking that hard. It doesn't seem like it to me. It seems like there are two camps. well, just use AI, or no, you can't use AI. You have to you have to learn cursive and
Callie: Be afraid of it.
Cole: and and be afraid of it. When in reality the answer is somewhere between those two, because both are important.
Mecca: I'm just sitting here wondering if AI could teach us critical thinking.
Callie: You know, it's funny. As Cole was going through his intro portion, he's talking about, you know, I don't know how to do this. I was like, I wonder if AI could help us, if it could point
Mecca: Yeah.
Callie: us in the right direction.
Mecca: I mean, there there's a there's a thought process there that just assumes AI is going to, you know, write this for you and solve the problem. But maybe we're not doing the right prompt.
Cole: Yeah, because I'm sure you could go to AI and say, hey, could you give me a list of 10 questions that don't necessarily provide me the answers, but questions for me to think about that will help improve my critical thinking skills. And it will
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: access the entire internet to find as many examples as it can and will probably smash a bunch of them together and spit it out for you. And some of them may be really good and some of them may not.
Mecca: We just have got to start thinking outside the box on all of this. Recognizing I and and and maybe that starts with recognizing what are the real critical components, like being able to, you know, have critical thinking, like being able to communicate and and write in some manner and think through those processes, you know. We need to redefine what are those basic things that are needed and then see how we can bring AI in to really develop those. I think that's a fascinating idea. Okay, ask AI how to increase my critical thinking. It it's kind of turning the question around. Interesting.
Callie: I also think that there's beyond beyond the grammar and spelling aspects of all of this, I think that Think that there's something to be learned, that there are skills, traits, frustrations to be learned and to how to deal with those things when you're up at eleven forty seven at night trying to write your paper, AI or not, having to go through all of this because you're trying to do a good job. And I think that there are, like I said, skills, habits, Even just processing of emotions that has to be done and take place in those situations out of frustration, out of fear. I don't want to fail. I don't want to fail my English class. I gotta get this paper done. I'm so freaking tired. I just wanna go to bed. I don't wanna do this paper, but my teacher's gonna be mad or my mom's gonna be mad, or my classmates are gonna laugh at me and make fun of I'm gonna have to retake English, whatever it is, like whatever your motivation is. Like, I think that especially as a young, impressionable mind in school. We've talked about men don't develop their like their brains aren't fully developed until twenty six. So in those like prime years between being a little kid to being in graduate school, I think that we've gotta be feeding our mind opportunity to Fail and be frustrated and come up short and be proud. And like all of these different things, we've got to give ourselves an opportunity to experience these specific lessons that life is needs to teach us before we're 45 and our boss has asked us to do something that we just don't want to do. And like there's reasons behind all of this. You need to learn life's lessons somehow.
Cole: I agree.
Mecca: I read an article today, another one, and it's talking about people are renting moms. They're actually companies that have been developed by a couple of individuals so that you send your kid to college and you hire this woman and some of them are just doing laundry for them. I nearly fell out of my chair when it said some of them are going to clean their dorm rooms for them. And I thought, holy hell no. But you know, sometimes it's a care package or sometimes it's you know, to get to the doctor because they've, you know, got a bad cold or s a and part of that I can understand, but part of that I was just like, Okay. Callie, that part of there's got to be some failure there. I mean, that how do you learn this if you always have a mom? Who's going to take care of you even when you go to college?
Callie: These are life's lessons that you need to have an opportunity to learn.
Mecca: Yeah, and you're right. We need some failure. And so, ooh, Cole, I I now that I'm turning it around,
Callie: Mm-hmm.
Mecca: can can AI teach us failure too?
Cole: Well In its current state. I don't know how to really address that question. I've and maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel like I've been put in the position that AI is the answer and that's not my position.
Mecca: I think AI is part of the answer.
Callie: Yeah, I think yeah, I I agree. I think
Cole: I agree.
Callie: that for a minute w your atimacy that what is it? That AI rejection is a form of educational malpractice kind of put you in that boat. But I don't think that you have to stay there.
Cole: It it doesn't, but that's that's like saying, kids should learn math is the same as me saying they don't need to learn how to spell. Like not teaching kids how to use AI is educational malpractice. So is not teaching them how to do math or reading and writing.
Callie: R right. But I think that the so is was left off of the initial until we brought it up and that's why you ended up in that boat. I'm not saying that
Mecca: Yeah.
Callie: that's how you think. You don't have to stay there. You don't have to be there.
Mecca: It may not have even been where you intended to be.
Callie: Right. But it's a
Mecca: It's what we heard.
Callie: right.
Mecca: So I I I think you're I am not intending to put on you that AI is the sole answer, but I do think AI is part of the answer.
Cole: I agree.
Callie: Yes.
Cole: I I don't know if AI can teach us failure. I know that AI currently fails regularly. I deal with it regularly. And so that means go back and try again. So
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: in that per from that perspective, I guess. I don't know if that is an adequate enough failure to teach you failure, but I think that there are lots of different ways to fail. And I don't think that AI in its current state. Is capable of Fulfilling all of those roles. And do I think at some point AI could get advanced enough where it may no longer be adequate at teaching us failure in that specific manner that I'm I I've just referenced? L likely if it continues to advance at the rate that it is supposedly advancing right now. But again, I don't think it is the sole answer.
Mecca: Yeah. I I think that if you're going to only rely on that that you're gonna fail, not in a good way. But it somehow those those things have to come together. We have to te be teaching both.
Cole: I agree.
Callie: Yes. I and and that I think that that line is where everything gets hung up for me because how much technological assistance can we accept before that assistance becomes substitution? Using it an AI to help you think, fine, versus using an AI so that you don't have to think.
Mecca: That's different.
Callie: I think it is different. And I think that it's going to end up being a really fine line that is going to look in a different place for everybody, right? This is I I think it's going to look different for everybody. I don't think that there's a right or a wrong answer until it comes to you. There's a right and a wrong answer for you.
Mecca: Which means that if you're trying to decide how AI can be used within a school, it's also not going to be a a hard answer. It's not going to be this is the this is the rule. It we're going to have to use some discretion and we're going to have to use some experience and and experimenting. And and it won't be the same for every kid. But we've got to be again cognizant of using it, cognizant of how it's being used, and of all of those other things that need to be unique or developed independently from AI. That's how I want to say that. Now, I mean we've said all of that and we've talked all of that and then our weird thought really is about what I would consider AI taking over or destroying us is is part of that conversation.
Cole: Yeah, so I saw a a couple of these this week, and maybe one of them was last week. Callie sent one that is an interview w with Anderson Cooper and a former anthropic developer. and I've after listening to the conversation, it's it's been several days, so maybe I need to go back and do it again, but I feel like it was blown a little bit out of proportion because to me what I got from him is yes, it's very possible. maybe even likely that AI will wipe out humanity within the next ten years. If I remember right, it was closer to the, yeah, it's certainly possible that AI could wipe out humanity in the next ten years. Not AI is definitely going to wipe out humanity in the next ten years. There was another example. there was a a a UN official, the United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk spoke on AI last week, I believe, and warned that advanced artificial intelligence poses an existential risk to humanity and called for urgent binding government regulation. So essentially he talks about things like, well, it's going to accelerate these already out of control wars. it's going to get out of its testing environments and take control of everything. It's going to cut off, What was the word he used? it wasn't essential, but it was really close to essential. but i it like cut off essential services through its takeover of different systems and of massive human potential for massive human rights violation. Basically this this big call for international regulation of advanced AI, which I mean, don't I don't know that I agree with his full reasoning behind it. I think it sounds to me at least a little bit outlandish. Regardless, I think he's right. I do think that there is a need for international, like worldwide regulation of hey, this is what you can't use these things for. Like a G a Geneva Convention for AI, if you will.
Mecca: There you go. That makes sense. I I mean, y you talked about some examples like it getting out of its sandbox or it taking over this or it getting into and it's done all of those things. So we do need some kind of agreement and control. And I think that's where yeah,
Callie: Risk mitigation.
Mecca: yeah, I think that's where we're at right now is that we're so afraid that China's gonna get ahead of us or this you know, that company's gonna find out more than we and so it's it's just this big competition that we're all afraid of losing.
Callie: Before we've any defined
Mecca: But we're not
Callie: the rules.
Mecca: Yeah. Yeah, we
Callie: Of the game.
Mecca: and and so I hear what you s you say, Cole, that you don't think we're talking about annihilation of the human race.
Cole: Not in ten years. Do I think we can advance technology to the point that we wipe ourselves out? Yes. I don't think it is
Callie: Do I
Cole: likely to happen specifically with AI in the next decade.
Callie: Do I hope that we're smart enough to address this before it's too late? Yeah, I do. And I'm and and maybe, maybe this is the cynic and the nihilist in me coming out, which doesn't happen very often, so but still, I hesitate about international rules, guidelines, whatever you want to call it. Because I think that our societies are so drastically different and divided right now. Like I don't want ha ha how how's it decided? Okay, we the AI Geneva Convention are going to set these rules. Well, you've got every day somebody, especially in this country, saying, We're not abiding by that. We're doing this differently. Like we don't want to have to answer to you. So how are we going to put guardrails in place globally that everybody can get on board with and agree with? I feel like there's going to
Cole: Right.
Callie: be a time deficiency that we don't have available. It's gonna take so much time to get any kind of rules put into place that it's going to be too freaking late. Like Maybe we need to baby step these things it the same way you eat an elephant, right? One bite at a time. So maybe that can't be this big international convention saying these are the rules and we're gonna not police you to abide by them. I mean, look at the UN, who's specifically who we're talking about saying this. Like n the policing of anything that is c comes out of there is It's kind of like the flock cameras. If you want to call it admit guilt, okay, cool. Now we can now we can get you in trouble for it. But there's not a ton of umph behind that. So I think that we need
Mecca: Yeah, but
Callie: to take different steps, even on a more granular individual level, to say, Hey, we gotta we gotta at least start here. I think that you can see that to some extent happening in tangentically related spaces in the social media ban for teenagers in Australia. We know it may not be perfect, but we gotta do something. And it's gonna be really uncomfortable for these teens who are doing it and having to abide by it after they've had it and now we've taken it away. But we gotta do something. I think that you can see it in the way that the the United Kingdom has gone about saying, hey, We're not doing any AI in this, this, this, and this capacity. We have put different rules in regulation. It can only be used in these formats or in these different applications. Like, it is the rule perfect? Absolutely not. But progress over perfection, right?
Mecca: Start somewhere. Yeah.
Cole: I get what you're saying, but at the same time, if there's not like a broad ba like we can agree that internationally murder is frowned upon, at the very least. Like
Callie: Yeah.
Cole: not a lot of places you can go where you can just do murders and it's not against the law of wherever you're at. N not not that it's necessarily enforceable in every every place, but but still.
Callie: Two murders.
Cole: But like in and I'm not saying that you need to have this giant decade-long convention of all of the different nations to iron out every specific rule, but I do think that it's a good idea to say, hey, everybody, let's get together, let's set a baseline. We're not gonna do chemical weapons, we're not gonna do cyber attacks of some certain kind or whatever. And so we're all gonna have to hold each other accountable because if you're building a super weapon and I'm building a super weapon and you say, well, I'm gonna tie my super weapon's hands behind its back and I don't, whose super weapon is probably gonna win?
Callie: Why do I gotta be the loser?
Cole: Fine, mine is the one I'm gonna tie mine behind.
Mecca: Yeah.
Callie: I I I see what you're saying. I just like I look at something like global warming as a another example of if we didn't do anything as individual independent nations, countries, peoples, we would be nowhere.
Cole: I think that's
Callie: Like we would
Cole: a great example of there not being a cohesive approach to it, which is why we're not making the progress that we s are supposed to be.
Callie: Right. I but I think that those are the guidelines that you have to work within.
Mecca: But you have to think that there was a point in time but there was a point in time that a a group of nations did agree on global warming and steps to go and what they were gonna do to reduce this and that has fallen apart. And so
Cole: Because not everybody was following those same rules, because not everyone was involved.
Callie: Right, and the policing of that is impossible. That's my point.
Mecca: Because there are no teeth to any of that.
Callie: Right. And so I while I
Mecca: Yeah.
Callie: think that having a collective go about and start on this, yes, absolutely needs to happen. I do not think we can only count on that and everybody else can just wait for that to happen. I think individually, on a much smaller level, we as countries, communities, citizens of the world have to start addressing this at a much smaller, more granular level while that other is happening too. I just feel like this whole conversation tonight is it feels like it's been a this or that, but both can be and are true, good, right, necessary, you know? I'm Go ahead.
Mecca: So so where do we agree? AI can be good that
Callie: There a whole bunch of stuff needs to be happening.
Mecca: we don't really know what it is.
Callie: I think that
Cole: AI is a useful tool. AI needs to be used responsibly. AI is not the only tool.
Mecca: Yeah.
Cole: AI has the potential to become very dangerous. Because it has the potential to be very dangerous, we should have both localized and global.
Callie: Attempts at regulating
Cole: Regulations or at least agreements to say we're not going to use this tool in these specific ways.
Mecca: Gosh.
Callie: Do you think that that becomes an and maybe this isn't right, but we're in the weird thoughts, so I'm just gonna go out with it. If all of the governments came out and said, hey, and maybe TikTok is an example, but if all of the governments came out and said, Hey, all of you LLM makers, these are the rules that you have to abide by. So go fix your shit. Like, is there a is that a an impending on their right to do business, their right to make in the free speech of the creators, like of saying, Hey, I think that this would be valuable. I think that this would be interesting. I want this to be out there. I want people to have access to this. Like is there an infringement there that takes place?
Cole: Let's take that exact same question and replace AI with nuclear weapons.
Mecca: So the difference that I see there, Cole, is that AI is private companies developing this, not necessarily governments where governments would be developing nuclear weapons.
Cole: Right, but it let's say I came up with a company and I wanted to develop nuclear weapons because I found someone who wanted to buy nuclear weapons, but you have regulations that prevent me from doing so. You're infringing upon my right to do business.
Callie: But isn't that happening already? I mean, Boeing has specific lines
Cole: That's kind of what I'm saying.
Callie: and everything that they have to follow. I mean, like all of these people who make all of those parts have specific lines and rules and regulations that they have to follow. And it's all still happening.
Mecca: And somebody's breaking those rules all of the time.
Callie: All the time.
Cole: Th that that's kind of my point.
Mecca: So yeah.
Callie: I just I don't know how I don't know how that works from a Department of Justice standpoint. Are you allowed to go in and say, Hey, you can't do this with your LLM? And I think that we we see that in again in multiple ways and facets happening currently. That's why All of big tech was at the presidential inauguration. We wanna get in on this on how it's being used and how it's being used against us and how we're being represented and what the rules and regulations are going to come out as. Like we wanna be on the forefront of those conversations, not the tail end to just have it enforced.
Cole: I mean, we'd kind of already do that in every other industry. I mean food, drugs, firearm manufacturing, vehicle manufacturing, like
Callie: So do you think there are gonna be people out there who are lobbying for unregulated use of AI?
Mecca: God. Yes.
Cole: Yes.
Callie: Yeah.
Mecca: I do.
Cole: There already are
Callie: That makes me so sad.
Mecca: Well, on that note, let's go to a good news story.
Cole: Let's get a good news story.
Callie: I don't wanna do it now.
Mecca: Come on, you can do it.
Callie: Okay, okay. I have a really great example of technology being used exactly the ways in which we hope. There is a 13 year old boy, Zac Waters from Utah, who got into 3D printing after watching all of these videos on YouTube about it. Instead of just printing toys and knickknacks or random things for himself or his friends, he found a nonprofit called Make Good and That actually creates 3D printed assisted devices for people with disabilities, right? So this isn't like a quick overnight project. Zac decided to spend his summer making a custom wheelchair for a 21-month-old little girl. He spent nearly 300 hours designing it, printing pieces, testing it, and assembling it. He even customized it specifically for her. It has pink accents because that's her favorite color. It's got a removable cup holder and tray and room for additional medical equipment or adjustable head and foot rest so that the chair can grow with her because she's 21 months old. when asked why he did it, Zac said, You guys, my heart just freaking melts for this kid. Because it combines my two favorite things in life 3D printing and helping people in need. It just makes sense. I'm in love. He's so cute. Yeah.
Mecca: He is thirteen with that type of philosophy. That is awesome.
Callie: Yeah, he he took something he was already interested in, learned how to use the technology, and figured out how to use that skill to make somebody else's life better, easier. I just I hope that we're also lucky at some point in our lives to figure out that our individual skills have really incredible impact when we use them to benefit other people. We could all take a couple of notes from Zac.
Mecca: Yeah. I it it really if you stop and you think about this, he's a thirteen year old, so what's that seventh or eighth grade, who took the majority of his summer to do something that he thought was fun, but to the benefit of somebody else. That philosophy is gosh, if we could have that philosophy in the majority of people, this world would be different. We wouldn't be talking about AI and being out of its sandbox because we'd be doing it for the benefit of people.
Callie: I think we would be having that conversation. I think that it would look different. I think
Mecca: Okay.
Callie: that it would be less scary and more approachable.
Cole: I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that AI is not being developed for the benefit of people.
Mecca: And if that's what I said, that's not what I meant to say.
Callie: I think that again, it's the other side of the same coin. If AI is only being developed to benefit us, it it would be selling what everything everybody is doing and what's coming out in that realm way short. I just think there's more to it than that.
Cole: Don't disagree.
Mecca: Not a simple answer.
Callie: No. No. It it isn't a simple answer and I hope that we can as a society, from individuals all the way up to people of the world as one whole group. I I hope that we can put more stock in the long-term consequences. It goes back to everything else that we've been talking about, this whole freaking show. Not today's episode, this podcast as a whole. If we only try and treat the symptoms and never treat the cause, we're never going to improve. Never a measurable amount that would be life altering.
Mecca: Go and do great things, children of mine. Do them with kindness. I love ya.
Callie: And your brain. Love y'all.
Cole: Love you too.
