This is how we're going to make you redundant, please let us show you. By Steve Way

 

It seems that many of us are worried about the impact of AI and associated technologies on our craft and livelihoods, particularly as authors. I thought you’d like to know about another situation occurring in my corner of another profession, teaching. Like me, as with the other ways in which the carpet is forcibly being pulled from underneath us, it may make you laugh or cry.

I get much of my work from an agency based in Madrid. Recently they sent out a round robin email inviting my colleagues and I to attend an online presentation of their new chatbot, which students can call whenever they want to have a conversation in English. I couldn’t help feeling that it was like inviting the Luddites to a lecture on ‘The care and maintenance of textile machinery’. Please let us demonstrate the technology that is going to make you redundant!

I read recently about a study in Japan the found that people under 20 preferred learning from a chatbot, whereas the over 20s preferred learning from a human. Although I’m not a WASPI like my wife my state pension has been deferred (could I be Waspish?) but I hope that there’ll be enough over-20s to keep me going for a few years yet.

Another change the agency has made, also based on AI, has made me wonder if I’m willing to sell my soul to the devil. At the end of each term, we’ve always been expected to write a report on each student’s progress even though a) they don’t pay us for the extra and considerable amount of time this takes to do so and b) the students are predominantly extremely busy executives who hardly have time to attend the lessons, let alone read anything not directly work related. Indeed, two of my favourite long-standing students have previously suggested that I used ChatGPT to complete their reports. It turns out in their case it’s an example of be aware of what you wish for. Possibly because the agency got fed up with chasing us up to do the ####ing things and because it sounds like results were far from standardised, we now have a list of options to click on based on their progress and then, if we wish, their AI churns out grandiose paragraphs that fill in all the gaps. Now in theory we can fill in the gaps ourselves but the click here, here and here option takes a tiny fraction of the time it takes to do so.

In the past, when I’ve been knowingly wasting my time writing these reports, I’ve been constantly thinking about how I could be doing something worthwhile instead, such as doing some of my own writing, which I at least hope has some use or purpose. It’s for this reason friends I have chosen the click here approach for this term’s reports. I hope you won’t consider me completely tainted and cursed.

PS I wrote this on my own!