In response to my post from yesterday, Stephen Downes focuses on the important and difficult issue. He says:

…George Veletsianos focuses on the question, “What new knowledge, capacities, and skills do instructional designers need in their role as editors and users of LLMs?” Using the existing state of chatGPT as a guide, he suggests that “a certain level of specificity and nuance is necessary to guide the model towards particular values and ideals, and users should not assume that their values are aligned with the first response they might receive.” At a certain point, I think we might find ourselves uncomfortable with the idea that an individual designer’s values can outweigh the combined insights of the thousands or millions of voices that feed into an AI. True, today’s AIs are not very good examples of dedication to truth, justice or equity. But that, I’m sure, is a very temporary state of affairs.

Good point: We might find ourselves uncomfortable with that idea. But, here’s the two assumptions that I am making:

1. That individual has developed a dedication to truth, justice, equity, and decolonization that they are able to apply to their work. Yes, I am hopeful on this.

2. For an AI to reflect values aligned with justice, equity, and decolonization, we (aka society) likely need to regulate and re-imagine their design. I am less hopeful on this.

I guess that where Stephen and I disagree is on the future commitments of AI. I would like to be as hopeful as he is, but I am not convinced yet. I would like to be wrong.