AI is Coming for your Children

24 Apr

AI is everywhere.

You may have seen on the news that Meta has now unleashed AI chatbots within its suite of apps. This includes AI chatbots within:

Instagram
Facebook
Messenger
WhatsApp

Between these services, there are a staggering four billion monthly users, many of whom are our students, all of whom will now have access to AI chatbots and image generation.

What’s more, Meta will launch chatbots voiced by different celebrities.

Students will be able to engage with AI chatbots with the voice and personality of

Sam Kerr
Snoop Dogg
Kendall Jenner
Charli D’Amelio
MrBeast

Let me tell you: these chatbots will be incredibly popular with teenagers.

What does this mean?

This means our hand has been forced.

I’ve talked to many educators who have rejected the idea of training students to use AI because they didn’t want to promote AI to students.

But this is what I need every educator to understand:

It’s not a matter of if we train students, but who trains them.

It may be an AI expert who wants to see students, teachers, and school communities thrive using AI.

It may be Meta. I’m not certain of their motives but I’ve got my doubts.

So the real question is will you train your students to use AI, or will you leave it up to the large tech corporations?

How should we train our students?

We should train our students how to:

Avoid using AI in a way that is detrimental to their education
Understand and articulate where their chat data is stored
Leverage AI to promote and further their own learning
Spot bias, partiality, and falsehood in AI output
Prompt an AI chatbot effectively

I touch on some of these principles in my AI – Cheater or Tutor eBook. I know many of you have read it, but I’ve attached it below if you want to get your free copy.