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The goal of education is to educate our society, and it should also be to create smarter humans. However in order to do that we need to teach them how to think, and we are not doing that presently, at least not in the US as in our schools we are teaching to the test, and we have so much rote memorization going on that the kids are not really thinking, at least most of them aren't, and I have a problem with this. Let's go ahead and talk about this for second.
To teach people that think, we need to have better mentorship and fewer kids in the classroom, but obviously the budget constraints, the underfunded pensions, and the costs are just too great. But what if we used software to interact with students - asking them questions and teaching them to think while following along? Is this possible? Well, we already have avatars and computer programs which interact with autistic kids, and they do so in such a way that brings the artistic child "out of themselves" and they get quite a bit of learning done which they could not get in a small classroom with even a 1:4 ratio, or one-on-one instruction.
As artificial intelligence gets better and stronger, why can't we develop computer programs which can do the same thing with regular kids? Now then, I know of a company out of Atlanta; they created "genius software," and it would string together famous quotes and phrases, and it could do so in a basic assimilation of a conversation. The software could also be used to make writers look really intelligent by borrowing pieces of writing from famous quotes, which they could cite in their articles.
I would submit to you that we could use the same software, albeit 10 generations from that old genius software which was available in the mid-90s to teach kids philosophy and get them to think. Okay so, let me ask the question then, and we can walk through this; can we develop and use Artificial Intelligent Software to teach philosophy to future students to get them to think, change the narrative, and challenge minds?
Why do I mention "change the narrative" - it's simple, because this is something that DARPA has been working on to help interact on social networks, speaking to individuals who might have hostile intentions, such as terrorists, guerrillas, lone wolf terrorists, or major disruptors of society. By challenging their minds, starting a conversation, and moving that conversation towards a more positive note these individuals learn to interact with others, and perhaps come out of their shell, and dismiss their radical ideas and notions.
Why can't we use all of these software developments to help teach students? I believe we can. In fact, I've already been practicing with one of these software systems, and it actually works pretty good. Best of all it takes the information that I feed it, and might use that information modifying and changing the words and the derivatives of various statements, to interact with other individuals, on the same or similar topics. That's pretty cool when you think about it, and maybe we can teach our next generation to think, using the very social networks and interactive process that they do for fun, in the educational process.
Yes, there's a lot more to all this I understand that, and you're welcome to shoot me an e-mail if you'd like some of my ideas and theories which go well beyond this, in fact I can probably write a whole book on the topic. It is something that we should be discussing and working on. Please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on the Future of Education. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/
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