Caitlin Green

I know that's not quite what they're doing, but if we had to guess some motive there for their answers and why they output BS, would that be the reason?

Now, caring about something that is true or producing text that sounds convincing, there is a difference between these two things.

And to me, I would argue that's a very important difference when it comes to the educational setting.

But maybe convince me a little bit there.

An analogy there might be when an autonomous AI vehicle hurts someone, like we're not throwing the driver in jail for reckless driving.

Let me jump to this other dystopian scenario.

So if machines are teaching and grading students in the near future, and then students are using those same machines to basically write, plagiarize, generate their assignments, and then those assignments are then being graded by the machines, like it's a garbage in, garbage out, and then the garbage out goes back to the garbage in.

Is this where academia might be going if we allow AI professors into the classroom?

Absolutely.

Let me just play the devil's advocate.

I don't agree with the opinion of this question, but there are those out there that say AI will sort of democratize education, that everyone will have a personal tutor.

Everyone will get feedback.

It won't be very expensive.

Hey, maybe it'll even be free.

How would you argue against someone with lofty dreams like that for AI and education?

Well, I hope universities heed your warning of automated education and we don't have the dystopian future we've been discussing.

Robert, I've enjoyed the chat.

Thanks for being on the show.

Thank you.

Robert Sparrow is a philosophy professor at Monash University in Australia.