One of the many benefits of working in a school with adolescents is the opportunity it provides us to have interesting and thought-provoking discussions with young men and young women about abstract issues. Whether we are discussing US policy toward the Middle East or the ethics of scientific research, the conversations we have with students in the throes of their teenager years are exciting and invigorating. We are truly fortunate to be teaching middle and high school students in this day and age.
I thought of how lucky we are to serve in the roles we do as I listened to the latest news about the performance of the machine Watson on the Jeopardy game show and as I read the cover article in this month's Atlantic Magazine called Artificial Intelligence? Why Machines Will Always Defeat Humans. Every so often, as we study the forms of technology we create, we ask ourselves what is different between them and us. Whether it was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (which was then made into the movie Blade Runner) works of fiction have forced us to consider what makes us human as the capabilities of our machines improve. (Remember the 1970’s show The Bionic Mind?)
We like to think that it is the uniquely human ability to emote and/or the capacity to reason that differentiate us from other species and machines. However, if our computers continue to improve and gain the capability to respond to a variety of affective as well as cognitive stimuli, the ground feels less sure beneath us. Machines can think but they cannot feel-can they?
Although other generations may have felt that they faced this same issue, it does seem to be more relevant in our times as our machines and gadgets play an ever more prominent role in our lives. (I say this as I type on my laptop, listen to my iPod, have my Smartphone close by, and look forward to reading a book on my Kindle or checking out something on my iPad tonight in bed.) How do we help our students separate themselves from their devices and help them continue to wrestle with what is human about themselves and their peers as we grapple with it ourselves? How do we show them that there is still a value to turning off at times and realizing that there is still something singularly human that no machine can replicate.
As they live more of their lives on-line, how do we help them develop a sense of self that does not require affirmation of total strangers in cyber space? How do we guide them so they can appreciate the beauty of silence and the value of being alone or spending time in close contact with someone face to face? We need them to understand that if there is something you would not say to a friend’s face, you probably don’t want to say it to her Facebook page; they need to realize that while brevity may be the sole of wit, there are times when one hundred and forty characters simply will not do.
At the end of The Atlantic article, the author Brian Christian says, “No, I think that, while the first year that computers pass the Turing Test will certainly be a historic one, it will not mark the end of the story. Indeed, the next year’s Turing Test will truly be the one to watch-the one where we humans, knocked to the canvas, must pull ourselves up; the one where we learn how to be better friends, artists, teachers, parents, lovers; the one where we come back. More human than ever.” Possibly more than ever, this is our charge with the children we have, and while it may be daunting, it is also energizing and life-affirming.
