For this blog post, my aim is to logically weave together both my AI Inspire and Butler Trouble papers while responding to feedback and reflecting on what I have learned over the course of the semester. My AI Inspire paper was a little unclear; it was rushed. I am going to slow down, unpack, and explain my thinking while relating AI to the oankali. On my Butler Trouble paper Dr. McCoy responded, “when oankali do surveillance, it is an act of care.” This phase inspired me– what are the benefits of both contrast surveillance and AI and how can they be used for good, especially since we do not really have a choice of where our information is being spread in this political climate.
Naturally, I want to use my 1,500-2,000 words to talk about something I am passionate about– education. In less than two weeks I am going to graduate with a degree in English Adolescent Education (7-12). Next fall, I am going to start my master’s degree in literacy education. I will pull individuals who have fallen below grade level in reading and/or writing and work on skills needed to be successful in comprehension in and out of the classroom. Why is this relevant? Because it is not as easy as saying “hey, this student needs help,” in fact, there is an entire legal process. By law, every student is entitled to the least restrictive learning environment (LRE) and taking a student without an IEP out of the classroom to do extra/individual work violates that right. Let’s backtrack. After Brown v. The Board of Education ruled that African American children are entitled to equal educational opportunities, parents of children with disabilities started suing school districts, claiming their children did not have protected educational rights. Of course, they won and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed in 1965; this provided resources to aid in quality education for students with disabilities. Ten years later the concept of an individualized learning plan (IEP) was introduced. IEPs are legal documents based on student performance and behavior data, drafted by school counselors, parents, students, and teachers, to place supports to help the student successfully complete the academic school year. A key component of IEPs are measurable and attainable goals; for example, if a student is struggling with reading comprehension a goal would read as “After given a simple written sentence, student will match the sentence to the picture for a total of three sentences with 80% accuracy across a two week period.” Typically, the document will say something along the lines of “individual reading instruction, 2×30 minutes a week,” to indicate exactly what skills are being worked on and for how long. Another section has to do with classwork/homework modifications and accommodations. This may say something like “only 60% of daily math homework needs to be completed,” or “student only needs to handwrite half of class notes and will be given printed copies.” I know that this seems long winded but I promise I am going somewhere with this.
Now, knowing that IEPs are based solely on data and that chatbots are trained to answer questions/produce work based on given data sets data sets, comes my idea: training an AI to be a personal special education teacher. This is not an entirely new concept, as I mentioned in my AI Inspire paper, some people already use chatbots for personalized accommodations. In the article “AI super uses have found the ultimate work hacks” Becca Chambers, an AI advocate says, “I’ve figured out a way to mask my neurodivergence… It’s like having an accommodation that’s inexpensive and easy to use.” This got me thinking about how AI can be used for good and play a more concrete role in specialized education. I am not exactly sure how this would work, but in the beginning of the semester I learned a lot about training AI from class readings. Essentially, the user feeds it a data set and it will start to produce answers that are either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The computer will eventually (somehow) learn what answers are acceptable/correct and build upon those to continue to please the user. For the sake of this far fetched theory, let’s say that our student is considered for special education in 1st grade. After writing an initial IEP you could feed it into AI. As the year goes on, the teacher would continue to upload all of the student’s work and assignments to the AI. In theory, the chatbot would be able to track the student’s progress, strengths, and weaknesses. Now, remember I am an English Education with a 2018 Macbook so I am no technological genius, but I imagine that you would be able to ask the personalized AI how to modify an assignment to fit said student’s needs. Let’s say there is a math worksheet with word problems, maybe the chatbot could expand on the problems by adding more visual space and details while also flagging ones that may require skills the student does not yet have. Please be patient. I will connect special education to Xenogenesis shortly.
This semester I had the privilege of reading Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy (And, no, I am not being sarcastic here. I enjoyed most of it). The three books follow Lilith, her life in a post world war/mass destruction oankali society, and her construct children as they try and navigate a new way of life. The oankali are alien gene traders. It is imperative to their survival that they continue to study and trade new beings. Their species is vastly different from humanity, and even at this point in the semester I am struggling to grasp it. However, something I understand is that they rely on data. They are constantly touching, tasting, and absorbing objects to learn their chemical composition. With this data they are able to reproduce beings and/or modify existing beings for the better. An example of this comes from the cancer scene in Dawn. Cancer runs in Lilith’s family, and if Earth was not destroyed by the human contradiction (hierarchy), she would have been diagnosed at a later stage of her life. Luckily for Lilith, the oankali have such a deep understanding of human genetics at this point. They are able to alter her genes and “delete” the cancer. For the sake of this paper I am not going to go into the issue of consent here, but I do want to acknowledge it. Readers see this again with Jodahs, Tomas, and Jesusa when Jodahs alters their genetics to get rid of their tumors. The oankali are able to read and correct disorders and diseases in humankind– they are healers. Given someone’s DNA they can read, evaluate, and correct.
If oankali were real, I think they would make great special education teachers. Why? Data. I mean, sure they have the ability to eradicate learning disabilities once and for all, but let’s say that they choose to work with them instead of against them. Erasing learning disabilities could be potentially harmful. Doing so would erase diversity and potentially hinder creativity (I want to note that although it is not scientifically proven, it is theorized that people with certain learning disabilities are more creative than their neurotypical peers). Adam Levine, Carly Simon, Chris Robinson, Solange Knowles, are all musicians who have a learning disability. Oankali would naturally have the tools to create the most equitable learning environment. I assume that they would be able to perfectly tailor each assignment to each and every individual students’ needs. In fact, I think that they would redefine our schools as we know them. Students who do not succeed in a typical classroom would not be singled out as the oankali would be able to create personalized learning for everyone.
This semester has been a rollercoaster. Starting the course I was an AI lover. I used it to help me with all different tasks. I used it to help me come up with ideas for lesson plans. During my student teaching I had a hard time coming up with age appropriate activities for 7th graders. I often found myself telling ChatGPT the premise and asking for “7th grade age appropriate classroom activities.” I also used it to translate MRI and lab reports. Over the last fourteen months I have had countless x-rays, four MRIs, and three full metabolic work-ups. Everytime I received a test result I would copy and paste it into ChatGPT asking for an explanation. For the record, it was very helpful. Lastly, I used AI to help me find sources. Instead of combing through databases I would ask for scholarly articles containing specific words. This typically worked as I was able to get access for most of the articles it recommended with my Geneseo login. When I started this class and learned about the environmental impacts I immediately stopped using AI. I could not believe how bad it was. I was oblivious to the water, energy, and biases it used. I downloaded an eco-friendly browser on my laptop and even tried to stop watching TikToks that were AI generated in an effort to boycott it. It is nearly impossible to completely avoid AI but I think as long as I make a conscious effort I can say that I have saved a little bit of water. With all of this being said, I think the best thing I can do is to channel my inner Lilith and continue to act in good faith on behalf of the future of humanity.