Watson’s Jeopardy Win Should Force Us To Rethink Education And The Profession Of Teaching

Wow. Watson, the IBM supercomputer, in an impressive display of “simulated” intelligence this week, won the TV quiz program, “Jeopardy” — thoroughly defeating the reining human champions.

Ken Jennings, the all time best human Jeopardy player, finished his losing match with "Watson," by writing below his final answer, "I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords" -- a takeoff from an old Simpson show where TV man Kent Brockman welcomed the rule of what he thought were a force of intelligent invading ants.

IBM believes Watson will result in big profits.  By next year, IBM plans to offer a commercial version of Watson for sale — a whole trailer full of equipment and software that will cost several million dollars. IBM believes decision-makers will be willing to pay a lot of money to have the power to sift through enormous piles of written material in seconds.

David Ferrucci is the manager of the IBM development team that created  Watson. He had four years, unlimited funds, and 15 of IBM’s brainiest brainiacs to work full time on the project. Ferrucci is quoted by NYT as saying, “I had no interest spending the next five years of my life pursuing things in the small, I wanted to push the limits.”

Corporate American determines to “push the limits,” when big profits are possible. It seems logical that in the near future, IBM or some hedge fund will work to “push the limits” in creating computer based teaching programs.  Think of a program with Watson’s capacity loaded with every successful teaching strategy. Think of the big profits possible, if professionally paid teachers could be replaced with “intelligent” machines.  It is one premise for my book I’m researching, “Public Education In Kettering, Ohio in 2030,” that, in the near future “teaching machines” will be reliable and cheap.

As I write here — The Dumbing Down Of What It Means To Be A “Great Teacher” Will Lead To Machines Replacing Teachers — in education, the battle of teacher v machine begins at the foundational level, where the very purpose and meaning of education is defined. Increasingly, education is being dumbed down to mean simply acquiescence to the authority of an objectified and identified curriculum. Increasingly, teaching is being dumbed down to mean simply, “the transmission of a curriculum as measured by objective tests.”

If some terminator type intelligent machine was working from the future — implementing a long term plan to take over public education — a good place to start would be the trivializing and “dumbing down” of the whole concept of “education” and the complete discrediting of the teaching “profession.”

The stage is set for machines to take over. We’ve been brainwashed to think a school is “excellent” if only a sufficient number of its students show minimum competence on objective tests. It’s obvious we don’t need high paid professionals to accomplish excellence so defined.  It’s a small step from a teacher reading from a script to a machine reading from the same. And won’t absolute personalization be wonderful? A machine for each child. Yes, there will still need to be humans,

"I, for one, welcome the new insect overlords."

“teachers,” to carry out the commands of the machine, but such humans will not require a professional salary, no more than guards do at the state prison.

The question for humanity, explored in science fiction, is, in the face of overwhelming technology, can mankind maintain its humanity? Can mankind understand and fulfill its human potential?

The futurist, Raymond Kurzweil, in a Time Magazine article, paints an astounding picture. Kurzweil tracks how much computer power $1000 (in constant dollars) could purchase over the last 100 years and says computer power, over time, doubles at a constant rate. He says at the established rate, that within 10 years, $1000 will buy computing power equivalent to the human brain.  (Kurzweil holds 39 patents and 19 honorary doctorates and was early recognized as a child prodigy.)

More than ever before, humanity has the power to shape its own future. And this power comes from our tools. The computer is a tool growing rapidly in power, and at an increasing rate. The question is — how will we choose to use this power?

Kurzweil predicts that the human brain will be successfully reversed engineered and by 2030, a computer will exist with authentic artificial intelligence.  He predicts that the exponential growth of computer power will continue, with eventually computers having intellects billions of times more powerful than humans. This astounding outcome, the coming “Singularity,”  will change human history forever. According to Kurzweil this outcome is not in some distant future, but, in 2045 — within the lifetimes of most humans now living.

The best example of the power of doubling that I’ve heard is to imagine a water glass with some tiny organism growing at the base of the glass. Suppose every day it doubles in volume.  It might double hundreds of times before it is even visible, or before you notice it. But, one day it will occupy 1/4 of the volume of the glass, the next day 1/2 and the next it will be filled. Its rapid change at the end of its cycle will be unexpected — because humans are acclimated to expecting linear change, not exponential change. According to Kurzweil, in technology we are approaching a dramatic crescendo and, soon, results will materialize rapidly and astonishingly.

Part of my research for my book about education in 2030 is to ask and attempt to answer:  If we use the reality of this coming avalanche of “artificial” intelligence as motivation for a prime directive, as an inspiration to redefine education in terms of guiding human development to best actualize human potential, human happiness, human fulfillment, how do we proceed?  What is such an education? After our computer overlords take over, let’s hope they are guided by such a prime directive.