The more closely I look at the relationship between generative AI and language, the more I move towards philosophy.
Have been reading John Searle and was struck by his four main areas of analytical philosophical interest:
Treacle Walker, Alan Garner
What an absolute treat of a book.
A short novel (135 pages) packed full of two really wonderful main characters and a surreal delight on every page.
Had not read any work by this author before although the sleeve notes point out Garner as 'one of our greatest living novelists'. I must look out for more of his work if this treat is anything to go by.
Reading it I was struck about how great this would be for a lower secondary school class as a class novel. Lots to enjoy, discuss and learn about/from.
Date important on this: 11.02.2023
Why important: Probably 6 weeks into the explosion of global knowledge and interest in ChatGPT
Already in those 6 weeks I have gone from amazed, excited to deeply wary.
How did that happen? I got hold of the book by Donald Clark (DC hereafter), Artificial Intelligence for Learning (for my birthday). I have wanted this book for a year and it didn't fail to impress. I read it cover to cover and now regard it as my initial reference for all things AI for learning.
In the book DC introduces many of the major names and writers in the field and it has been fascinating to find out more about these figures which, until 6 weeks ago I really had hardly heard of.
So, one case in point is Gary Marcus.
You can follow Gary Marcus on his substack site: https://garymarcus.substack.com/
I have really enjoyed reading and watching more of Gary's work and he has some extremely important things to say about AI. One thing I realised is that he is not saying AI is bad but he does have a lot to warn about the current massive explosion of LLMs through ChatGPT (and the iterations now added to Google and Bing).
