As a kid I was a huge fan of science fiction. I remember going to the theater to watch Star Wars A New Hope when it first came out and at home I watched Star Trek The Original Series (TOS) and Battlestar Galactica (1978 version) and thoroughly enjoyed envisioning what the future could be. Of those three, Star Trek was the most inspiring to me. By the time I was a young adult Star Trek The Next Generation came out and I was again swept away by what the future could be. BTW, I remember thinking that their small pad computers could be a thing then the iPad exploded on the scene and I was like, “I knew it!” ?
One thing I remember vividly was the way Geordi La Forge, the chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the above video, would consult his ship’s computer AI to help him solve problems. I loved that so when ChatGPT exploded on the scene I was immediately drawn to using it like Geordi did! As a matter of fact, that is the way I have used it the most, to discuss my lessons and bounce ideas off it. It was like having someone with whom I could discuss what I was teaching when I’m the only teacher in my entire district who teaches what I teach (what happens when you teach in a small district).
Here’s another example where Data, an android officer also working on the Starship Enterprise, consults the computer AI like he’s discussing his problem with another person!
Thinking of AI like an extension of my computer I was taken aback by all the posts about people being afraid of ChatGPT and what it could do. I am aware of the real problems these chatbots bring and although I have entertained the healthy fear that comes from watching iRobot and all the Terminator movies I know cyborgs turning on the human race is not very likely. What is real and happening includes trusting chatbots when they are are only as good as the data they are trained on. That means a Chatbot like ChatGPT can easily spew bias, hatred, and false information because that’s what it was trained on. ChatGPT is so good at forming sentences and paragraphs that are entirely grammatically accurate and sound like a human wrote it but it’s only choosing words that fit and make sense semantically while not fact-checking. These chatbots are very able to give us information that is totally false and/or completely made up and confidently state that it’s true, true being a human construct and not an AI reality. There’s also the concern that AI, much like robots, will replace humans. That means that humans will have to do different work that AI and robots can’t do. Another concern is AI replacing human creativity as in writing books (which Amazon has been allowing) and producing artwork (including scraping copyrighted works of art without permission). Then there’s an ever important consideration for all teachers, the equity issue. If we ban and block tools like ChatGPT those kids who have less access at home will continue to fall even farther behind their peers who can and will use AI tools at home. That last one right there is always prominent in my mind when I integrate current, relevant, and effective technology into my Math and Science classes.
So while I am very aware of the limitations and even dangers of ChatGPT, including having to remind myself that it’s NOT a person, I am still very excited to use it as Geordi and Data use their computers in the videos above. As a matter of fact, when I first started using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, I offered the feedback that I would love for them to add a feature where I could speak directly with ChatGPT instead of type and have ChatGPT respond with text and text to speech, too. I was excited when I saw Alice Keeler share a service that allows us to talk to an AI assistant: 5 Reasons Merlyn AI Teacher Assistant is a Game Changer. Although it’s WAY too expensive for me right now, I’m sure other products like this will come around.
For using AI like a computer program you can talk to, I have to add Tony Stark talking to Jarvis to solve problems. This is before the whole Ultron thing since that just exacerbates our fears! I’m hoping we’ll able to manipulate digital media through holograms soon because it looks like fun. The point here is that Tony is doing the thinking and problem solving and is using the AI/Computer to help him do what he needs to do. Using the computer and AI allows Tony to do what he needs to do faster and more efficiently – the purpose of technology!
[Note: While I wrote this post without ChatGPT’s help in the writing portion, I did consult ChatGPT to help me find scenes where Star Trek crew members were consulting the computer AI. I had tried a regular Google search and that gave me nothing so I tried ChatGPT. ChatGPT was so much more helpful, it gave me episodes where the crew used the computer AI to help them! Well, it wasn’t that easy. What I found out was that with the original series from the 60’s, there really isn’t much if any instance of crew members taking directly with the computer! I thought they did but as I scanned the episodes ChatGPT mentioned, the crew were not speaking with the computer! So I had a conversation with ChatGPT explaining what I was looking for. As it does, it apologized for not understanding and did admit that although the scenes indirectly assume that the crew members most likely used the computer to calculate and solve the problems, the people did not directly talk to the computer. That was a source of trouble as I kept getting episodes where the computers were clearly used but where crew members were not directly speaking to the computers. That was frustrating and it took me a long time to scan through so many episodes only to find nothing usable. It was fortunate that I love Star Trek and didn’t mind scanning through episode after episode. 🙂
I continued to as for TOS episodes where the computer actually spoke but all the scenes I found the computer was doing very basic, non-AI, tasks such as being used as a lie detector for two episodes with court martial trials, or reading information off a disk drive database type activity. So there was nothing there I could use. When I asked for scenes from the Next Generation, those proved more fruitful because in that series crew members did interact with the computer AI directly! I also purposely did not use any scenes where crew interacted with the holodeck because it feels to me like that technology is still far away for us so I stuck with talking to computers instead of using holograms. That being said, it was not very quick or easy to find scenes even though in my memory I thought it happened so much more!
I wanted more modern scenes I asked ChatGPT for scenes from the newer show, Discovery. It was able to provide scenes from shows prior to 2021, the last year its database received training data. I couldn’t get any from Star Trek Strange New Worlds because that one came out after 2021 and I didn’t ask about Star Trek: Picard. I was excited until I found that in none of the scenes did anyone directly talk to the computer AI like in the two video samples shown above! I was shocked because I thought for sure someone spoke to the computer! I really wanted a scene from Discovery because their cast is so diverse and their technology is so advanced and awesome looking – again taking me to what our future could be.
In the end I am pleased with the two clips I found above. They get to my point clearly and they are short. It’s funny how I thought that happened so much more often and in all the series. I guess that stuck with me and my memory spun it differently from what actually happened. Hm, we are capable of making up truths just like AI.]
