Will machines take over?

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

                 HAL in 2001 a Space Odyssey

Tad Simons in "How Machines Will Take Over" (Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 24, 2015) explains how if he were a digital intelligence wanting to wrest control of the world from humans, he'd do so. No Terminator or Robopocalypse scenarios in Simon's vision - just a slow, subtle, methodical, and quite willing transfer of control from human to machine.

The fifth step of his 9 step plan was:

I’d target the human education system, aiming to shift the emphasis of their precious but malleable values. At every level, from kindergarten to college, I’d slowly de-emphasize the value of human accomplishment — particularly in the areas of literature, art, history, music and philosophy — and boost the educational importance of areas that would increase my artificial omnipotence, such as computer science, technology, engineering and math.

Simon's commentary, of course, is more commentary on technology-influenced social conditions than a clear warning about R2D2 becoming Gengis Khan. I have a good deal of trouble working up much fear about "technology" ever having consciousness, let alone a survival instinct that includes strategies for eliminating its creators. (I am more concerned about losing my iPhone.)

But I do share Simon's concern about pushing the humanities into the background in education in favor of a STEM-for-all approach, rather than honoring all disciplines and honoring the individual interests for all students. (See also A Little Steamed About STEM.)

So remember, next time you are encouraging that kindergartner to do a little coding, you are pretty much assuring that same child will on day be ruled by an AI god. Let it be on your conscience.

 

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BFTP: Top 10 Interview Questions

It's that time of year when the fescue starts looking pretty green on the other side of the fence. And that means many librarians and tech specialists are looking at new (or first) positions in schools. 

I'm regularly asked questions about questions - interview questions so I posted a list of questions we use in our department a few years ago and they are still available here. But recently one reader asked for a "Top Ten" list:

1. If I were to visit your last place of employment, how would the students, teachers, and your supervisor describe you and what your job was?
2.  How do you help apprehensive users overcome their nervousness about technology?
3. What is the last new skill or new piece of technology or software you learned? When was that, and how did you go about learning it?
4. Describe a project or program that you have administered about which you feel proud.
5. How will you demonstrate that your work is having a positive impact on student achievement in the school?
6. What process do you use in creating policies for the use of your facilities and resources? How do you prioritize your time?
7. What kind of changes do you feel will happen in education in the coming years? What might your job will be like in five years? 
8. Describe a lesson or project that required collaboration with others. What was your role and what made the effort successful or unsuccessful?
9. Describe your philosophy of the use of technology with students. How has or should it impact the teaching of reading, research, and content area skills?
10. How does one create long-term, permanent change in a school?

When I look for new employees, I try to ask questions that bring out the best in the person being interviewed rather than playing "gotcha." I love it when people describe projects about which they were passionate. I love hearing how people took initiative and did things that went beyond the job description. I love knowing that a person has worked well as part of an effective team. And I love knowing that the person I am hiring is him/herself a genuine learner and excited about the future.

Were I applying for jobs this spring, I just might think about answers to the questions above and figure out ways to work the answers into the interview conversation.

Whether the questions are asked or not.

Original post April 30, 2010.

See also a little advice for job hunters.

Creativity and jobs of the future

A recent study by the Oxford Martin School concluded that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at high risk of being taken by smart machines and software in the next two decades. And what is interesting, notes James Manyika, a director of the McKinsey Global Institute and co-author of “No Ordinary Disruption,” is that, contrary to expectations, “knowledge workers at the middle and the top” may be more threatened than those doing physical work. For example, The Associated Press now uses computers, not reporters, to generate more than 3,000 financial reports per quarter. This can free up workers to do more creative work, but they have to be trained for it. Thomas Friedman, May 20, 2015

In my creativity workshops I sometime show the clip of Google's self-driving car being operated by a man who is serverly visually impared and then ask the participants to speculate on what impact this invention may have on the career options of their students. Everybody pretty much guesses that when road vehicles become computer-driven, the prospects for taxi drivers, truck drivers, shuttle drivers, etc. is bleak. But in digging a little deeper, we often speculate about the impact on highway patrol officers, insurance salespeople, and auto body repair technicians. Will there be a rise in transportation engineers, computer programmers, and in-car entertainment specialists?

I introduce the need for developing creativity (the why) in the first chapter of Teaching Outside the Lines (Corwin, 2015):

Right brain skills, the creative class, and Luddites

In his book A Whole New Mind:Why Right Brainers will Rule the Future, Daniel Pink asks the reader if his job can be done better by a machine or less expensively in another country. But the most interesting question he asks is this: “Am I offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age?” (Pink, 2006)

In other words, Pink predicts that when one has the money and is given a choice, a consumer will purchase a product that not only works, but has something value-added. An aesthetic appeal, for example. It will be these creative folks, those who use the right sides of their brains, that are less likely to lose their jobs to factory workers in China or to a robot.

Richard Florida writes about the group he calls the “Creative Class.” (Florida, 2003) He estimates that about 30% of the U.S. workforce can be categorized as creatives, divided between the Super Creative Core and Creative Professionals. (Remember these distinctions when we examine Big C and little c definitions of creativity in Chapter Two.) These people and their companies earn enough money that cities attempt to lure as residents - as opposed to trying to have their jobs outsourced them to Bangladesh.

The outsourcing and automating trend is now impacting a new set of workers: those in traditional white collar jobs. New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman thinks Luddites, the 18th century English textile workers who were threatened by automation, got a bad rap. (Krugman, 2012) He writes that “...the workers hurt most were those who had, with effort, acquired valuable skills — only to find those skills suddenly devalued.” Today’s “Luddites” are x-ray technicians, legal researchers, computer programmers, and other skilled occupations. A college degree alone no longer offers a lock on full time, life-long employment at a good salary.

Business gets this. In response to this rapidly and dramatically changing economic landscape, the 2010 IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future. (IBM, 2010)

We as conscientious educators cannot ignore these employment trends.  Chapter One: The Rise of Creative Class(room): Why is creativity is no longer a “nice extra” in education?

Like all authors, I suppose, I like getting the royalty checks that arrive in the mail once a year. But the small monies I earn from my writing would simply not be enough of a motivator to write. It's hoping that one's writing convinces others to do a better job with kids that is the real driver. And it's fun to be validated in one's thinking when reading a column like Friedman's mentioned above.