Learn How to Swim

By Bobby Neal Winters

We are going through a time of change in higher education. Our enrollment is down.  This is true not only locally, but over the country.  There were 4 million fewer university students in the US in 2022 than there were in 2012.  That’s a 10 percent decline. At the same time, the baby boomers (like me) are getting older and in greater need of medical care.  This needs to come from doctors and nurses, who both need education.

And just so that my point is not missed, these people need to be smart.  They need to know how to do stuff.

At the same time, everybody needs to know how to work some kind of machine or other.  We need people who can fix those machines.  This greater need is happening at a time when the birth rate in the US is going down.

With this said, let it also be said that the US has never had enough people to do all the work it wants to do, but we found ways to deal with it.  More on this later.

Now, right here and right now, we have a release of artificial intelligence of a higher quality than has been available before.  While there has been the occasional clap of thunder and flash of lightning before, the release of  ChatGPT was the first big drop of rain, and since that time a few months ago, it’s been a toad-strangler as my old grand pappy would say.

As so happens at times of rapid change, there have been those who’ve looked at the heavy rain, proclaimed it a devastating flood, and have started seeking higher ground.  And to be fair, the potential for disaster, especially in individual cases, is huge.  Again, to quote from the First Book of Dylan: “You’d better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin’.”

Before I mentioned that we’d never had enough people to do the work we wanted to do, but we’d found ways to deal with it.  One of those ways was immigration: African slaves to pick the tobacco and cotton; Irish and Chinese to build the railroads; Mexicans to pick the fruit; the brain drain on Europe after WWII; physicians and scientists from Asia.  But even that was not enough at times, so we have done a lot of mechanization:  Cotton gins and reapers; tractors and combines.

In all of these cases of mechanization, we’ve still needed people to do the work, but their reach has been extended by machines.

The recent developments in artificial intelligence are tools that can help extend the reach of our intellectual workers. And this has already been going on for years, for decades, but the rate of change has been so slow we’ve not noticed much.  Some of us remember times before word processors, before spreadsheets, before PowerPoint(good times!), and these tools extended the reach of those of us who work more with our words than our hands.

But this has been like a heavy dew or a light mist.

What’s happened since the release of ChatGPT has been more of a flood.

But ChatGPT is a tool.  It will extend the reach of writers, computer programmers, and educators to begin with

I am interested in all of these.  As a writer, I was curious, so I fed it in a few of my columns (it likes my writing by the way; I asked it) and had it write something on a particular topic in the same style. What it wrote sounded like me.  Maybe not the best version of me; I hope. But like me.  I don’t know if I will ever do anything with that but there are possibilities there.

My interest in programming comes from my job at the university.  I’ve been involved in rebooting our Computer Science program. We rebooted it because there is such a pressing need for computer scientists.  While I was initially worried that the fact that ChatGPT can write programs would hurt our major, I believe the reverse is the case.  There will be an even greater need for programmers, but they will need to be properly prepared.

Even a tool like a hammer is just a chunk of iron if you don’t know what to do with it.

As for education, this might wind up being the largest application of artificial intelligence. (It is hard for me to refrain from putting a joke about curving tests in, so there.)  There are numerous resources online. I’ve personally used them to teach myself a number of things.  Having some sort of guide would’ve saved many false starts. I’ve recently read a story where people are using ChatGPT to guide them.  I’ve got to think there is a way that we teachers can take this and leverage it to help extend our reach in the classroom.  I might leave this as something for the younger ones to figure out, though.

In closing, I’m reminded of an old joke from the 1950s or 60s, I think.  They had just programmed a very sophisticated computer, much more advanced than ever before.  They gave careful thought to the first question they would ask it.

They keyed in the question: “Is there a God?”  The tape turned; the relays clicked; the printer printed; they read the printout.

“There is now,” it said.

We are not there.  This is a tool, and if you are in some professions, you either need to learn how to use it or learn how to swim.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like'' the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube. )