It’s been interesting to see what kinds of conceptual metaphors have been used to describe generative AI. Conceptual metaphors are ways to talk about something by relating it to something else. It’s been interesting because the ways we choose to speak about generative AI in education matter, because those choices impact experiences, expectations, and even outcomes. Early pedagogical agent research for example, identified different roles for agents often positioning them as experts, mentors or motivators. Even the term pedagogical agents carries its own connotations around the kinds of work that such a system will engage in (pedagogical), compared to say conversational agents or intelligent agents.
Below is a small sample. What other metaphors have you seen?
- AI as a Copilot
- AI as a guide, tutor, assistant
- ChatGPT is a smart, drunk intern
- Generative AI is like a technological tsunami.
- In essence, generative AI is like a powerful calculator. It can do the heavy lifting, but it’s up to the user to…
- Generative AI is like a smart computer friend that can make things up on its own.
- Generative AI is like a broken mirror of us
- Stochastic parrot
- Infernal Stochastic Gibberish Generator
- Bullshit generator
- A blurry jpeg of the web
- AI in education as a painkiller or a vitamin
Update: See Dave Cormier’s related post around prompt engineering, or what to call the act of talking to algorithms.
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