If you are an educational technology advocate who is not subscribed to Audrey Watters’ Second Breakfast newsletter, you probably should be. I am going to just leave this quote here for us all to think about… (from her recent Un-Listed post)
I’ve long been a fan of Emily Bender and Alex Hanna‘s use of the phrase “synthetic text extruding machine†to talk about generative “AI.†It conjures an image of the pink slime that’s used in ultra-processed meat products – it’s not not meat, but yeah, ewww. But maybe I’m going to start saying “child porn machine†instead: “oh, did you use the child porn machine to summarize that article? Cooooool.†“oh, you used the child porn machine to grade your students’ essays? Niiiice.†“Ah, you had the child porn machine write letters to parents, praising their child’s behavior in class? Excellent.†“It’s faster to use the child porn machine to write letters-of-recommendation, you say? I see.†Nice school system, nice future you’re building.
Your thoughts?
