Augment or Replace – Thoughts on AI and Education

There are many brilliant and highly educated experts out there working in well funded labs at corporate giants like Microsoft and Google and in countless start-ups developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology; I am not one of them. But when the father of AI at Google resigns to warn us of the dangers of generative AI, we non-technical experts should at least pause to ask serious questions.

These are questions about not only the obvious impact of AI on how we will govern, work and live, but perhaps more critically on how it might change how we see ourselves as human beings. AI can already write poems and essays with little direction, compose music, and create art that is not distinguishable from the work of human beings. Isn’t it reasonable to wonder if we biologically carbon-based humans are competing in a race to the top of the food chain with silicon life forms of our own creation – and we might not win?  Science fiction?  

In my new book, ‘A Place for T: Giving Voice to the Tortoise in Our Hare-Brained World’, I see this question posing a contrast to Aesop’s classic fable about a race where the slow and steady Tortoise beats the fast and clever Hare.  Now we are in a ‘human race’ pitting our Hare-Brained ‘heads’ against our Tortoise-like ‘hearts’ – a race between the Hare’s pursuit of wealth, power, and status and the Tortoise’s pursuit of becoming a better human being.

My proposition is simple – AI is like a performance enhancement drug the Hare created to aid its progress in the ‘human race’ at the expense of the Tortoise that I name T. As a result, we might be in danger of outrunning our humanity leaving both T and the Hare in the AI wake. Our growing inability to talk to each other in civil and respectful ways is just one symptom that we are already failing to keep a place for T in the race. Are we heading for a future we don’t want – one where the Hare wins at the cost of its own utility and our souls? Who will we be in this future? These are questions for all of us trying to find meaning in our lives and make sense of our existence.  

My questions are not intended to devalue the obvious utility of AI in our lives. I hope they broaden our perspective and invite conversations about the potential impact of AI on who we are ‘being’ or ‘becoming’ as human beings as we neglect T in the ‘human race’.  Technology initially augmented our hands with machines, augmented our ability to calculate and process information with computers, but now we might be about to ‘replace’ our creative minds and souls with AI.

We should stay curious about the distinction between ‘augment’ and ‘replace’; this technology is different. It supports an emerging self-organizing intelligence that in a few years will evolve on its own out of human sight and in ways we don’t (and cannot) understand. It will quickly exceed our human capacity to think and imagine. Why would it not become self-reflective and evolve a sense of identity? If this is a science fiction story, AI will write it despite our intentions. At our peril, we deny AI has the potential to morph into a superior alien life form that might have its own view of the role it sees for an inferior human species. How would we see ourselves in second place in the food chain? I wonder how our pets view us.

The promise of AI is undeniable, but there is so much at stake here beyond the lure of efficiencies and short term profits. I wonder if we are like moths being drawn to an undesirable fate misjudging how close we can fly to the attractive flame. Conversations about the human impact and potential danger of AI are just beginning in Washington, and more rarely in C-Suite meetings and classrooms.

In all these conversations, where are the poets, musicians, philosophers, doctors, first responders, spiritual leaders, children, and teachers?  They speak for our humanity and give voice to T.  In my book, I argue these conversations would be better convened on front porches or around campfires where the Hare and T can talk more freely as opposed to in more formal businesslike settings where the Hare silences T.  

Questioning how we are approaching education is a good starting point for these conversations. Is our education system preparing future generations for an AI dominated world?  Current focus seems to be on how to use, or cope with, AI to ‘augment’ our ability to do what we are already doing. What about the ‘replace’ dimension that this technology represents? Think about the typical MBA program for example. What will AI ‘replace’ in data analysis, systems design, and programming, accounting, financial, and economic analysis? How will it impact strategic planning? How will it change work cultures? 

What will our unique human role be in the AI infused organization and how do we prepare executives for it? MBA programs proudly seek to brand themselves with words like ‘high tech’ or ‘cutting-edge’. Too often they are just preparing future Hare-Brained managers to do what AI will soon do better and faster, not developing T-inspired leaders to steward our humanity and seek to be better human beings. Maybe community building, character development, and dialogue skills will be more important than analytical skills in the emerging world. Imagine an MBA with a ‘front porch’ dimension making use of poetry, music, history, and philosophy to preserve T’s voice in our conversations as we face diminishing utility.  

It all boils down to this – who do we want to see in the mirror in an AI future and how can education help us preserve that image?  Let’s talk while we still have time. If we don’t, future generations will be asking why we didn’t!

P.S.  – Did I write this post or is it a product of AI?  How could you tell?  Does it matter?

Written by Robert Lengel.

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