Artificial Intelligence: teaching and learning

The first sparks of practical and real efforts aimed at creating artificial intelligence were lit here and there in the mid-1950s in visionary minds such as Alan Turing and John McCarthy – although it is very likely that there were many other geniuses who participated in this process but did not have their names recorded in history.

The dedications during this period focused on finding ways to allow machines to develop complex logical processes and, after all this effort, be able to deliver something that approached some of the most primary and natural impulses of human beings.

These enlightened and dreamy people were expanding concepts and seeking success in one of humanity’s noblest tasks: teaching how to think.

Since then, this task has gained monumental efforts and proportional effects.

Machines have learned a lot.

But we humans have learned much more. Because we are ahead and, above all, we are the creators of this technology.

AI IS HERE

After decades of speculation illustrated by a film and literary production that terrified generations by imprinting a single and fatal destiny for humanity that taught machines to think, AIs have recently come to light, renewing expectations and fears through popular tools.

Although AIs have been part of many people’s lives for a few years now, the boom in tools such as Chat GPT, Midjourney and DreamStudio has become a turning point in this matter.

The world is amazed and scared. And among those who have shamelessly surrendered and those who are intransigently fearful, there are those who have decided to deal with what has been presented to the world in a prudent manner, transforming this moment into an opportunity.

 

Watch the playlist of the FALA PECEGE videocast on the topic “AI IS HERE” and follow some of the discussions about Artificial Intelligence and how Pecege has been dealing with it.

Artificial Intelligence brings great possibilities for reflection on how we place ourselves in this game of learning and teaching.

AI IS HERE

At Pecege, we have enjoyed this opportunity to reflect on how we are dealing with the topic.

As an institute dedicated to innovation and education, we have sectors and initiatives here that are at different stages and cultivate different types of relationships with AIs, but our contact with them has been ongoing and growing for some years.

From new products such as Skylar, Artificial Intelligence for live translation and subtitling, created and improved at Pecege, to the use of Sketch Engine in the planning and evaluation platforms of our courses and those we maintain with partners, we are participants in the present of AIs.

In the words of director Daniel Sonoda, “Artificial intelligence and advanced technologies themselves have contributed greatly to the democratization of knowledge and are an asset to the academic research environment. Tools are not villains; the sieve for the good use of these technologies will come from good education.”

THE RARE IS WHAT MATTERS

Technologies will emerge and surpass themselves. This is their role. And in the face of each one that offers itself as transformative and irresistible, there will be a human ability to be improved to keep the rare and the special in their place of prominence.

What is at stake is precisely teaching and learning. We had the opportunity to teach machines to think and now, in the face of the “thinking” that they have the power to deliver to us, we are learning to deal with them.

This is the demand that is being imposed on us at the moment: to learn.

Once again.

We have to discover how to remain an audience for creation, giving it meaning as beings who enjoy the subtext, who analyze and give meaning to data, who interpret images, who always create the beyond. Who, in possession of what technology offers, strive to continue teaching and learning how to think.