By Deba Prasad Misra & Dr. Arunav Barua
The years have witnessed a change that has been remarkable in the effect it has had. This change, which has revolutionised the style of our working and living, is the advent of the internet. When pioneers like Charles Babbage sat down to conjure the machine we now call the computer, perhaps even he and his equally gifted compatriots instrumental in the development of the computer, had not imagined the kind of change it would bring. What began as machine language slowly gathered pace and we have seen many generations of the computer from large, bulky machines housed in places like Pentagon and other elite organisations, slowly being configured into smaller and smaller versions with more memory and capability than those early years of simplicity. The reasons were many, the silicon chip and its invention being one of the many reasons. We even have a ‘Silicon Valley’ now.
Man’s need to save time and effort is perhaps the main reason why such drastic and sudden mutation of the computer has prevailed. Here though, we will not discuss the computer per se but the phenomenon of the internet. The internet from its early days of simplicity mutated also as the computer had. From the Microsoft Explorer to the Google Chrome and the changes are continuing so today we have witnessed much development in diversity and range. The speed at which the internet functions now allows us to send messages or emails to any part of this planet in seconds, if not instantly. But the reason for concern is this very growth. AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is the new fad. Now, with a few simple prompts, people can ‘write’ articles and essays of any length with immaculate grammar and perfect language in a matter of minutes. Music can be composed without the requisite skill musicians once required to compose anything of quality. Art, if it can be called so, can be created if you are a master of this development called the ‘AI’.
We don’t really know if these essays, articles, poems, music or any of the arts can actually be called ‘art’ anymore, because it is the machine which actually ‘creates’ these and unlike the times when you had to be a true artist to create any sort of art, we now have many imitators passing themselves off as artists under the garb of AI. Being proficient in the use of a machine, the machine called the computer, is no measure of an artist’s acumen. You may create stuff that would pass as ‘art’ but you would have no ‘style’. Style is a very human element that comes with practice. All artists of repute have a unique style which is theirs’ alone and can be seen replete in their work. AI may give you the material but never a style of your own.
The worrying trend that is slowly being observed is that AI is slowly infiltrating upon the human faculty of creation. People who worked in the creative fields are slowly becoming redundant because better users of the computer suddenly discover with glee that they can write ‘better’ than even the likes of Shakespeare or make art more appealing than Da Vinci, or even music that would surpass Beethoven’s. It is claimed that Einstein had quoted; ‘Technology would advance to a stage which would create a generation of idiots.’ Do we find parallels in present day society? Without having to write a single line, without having to actually think to write, what can we expect the Gen Z to gain as students? This phenomenon has other, more concerning effects.
Let us look at teaching as a profession in the context of classroom teaching. Now, it is normal to use powerpoint presentations (PPTs) as teaching materials. But while PPTs are very helpful, does it really add to the quality of the teacher? Now, AI can imitate the human voice and it can be programmed to speak in the accent of the person after his voice has been recorded for a few minutes. So, with an AI edit of some person of repute, we can programme the computer to reproduce the voice of the person in question, to speak what we key in. Classroom teaching requires a true educator’s acumen, AI can and ‘may’ replace the teacher if looked at from a perspective we now give you. AI is interactive, i.e, it can be used to respond to voice commands and this is a development that may replace the teacher. If a machine can explain the required lesson in a manner programmed by these expert programmers, respond to student queries in a perfected accent and more accurately than the teacher, what use is the teacher in this scheme of things?
We now come to the element we had discussed earlier- the element called ‘style’. Like a true artist, all true educators have a style which makes them unique. The student imbibes these myriad styles of all the teachers he/she has encountered in life and gains from the interaction that thus transpires. As our education is meant for knowledge, employment and humanity, so also classroom teaching can fulfil the criteria. We may imagine a world where just before we enter the classroom, we as teachers may have to type in a password which brings us to a portal with the prompt; ‘Prove that you are not a robot’! Though stated humorously, as long as it is important to prove that we are not ‘robots’, perhaps the human element; this humanity that we are discussing, will be retained and that will be the reason why any machine or software will never be able to replace the classroom teacher. This is also a time of reflection, of deep thinking, about how much we can let the machines do our work for us because it is easy.
The present generation takes great pride in the fact that they can use AI with expertise, but is this actual accumulation of talent or a waste, because you know deep inside that it was not you who created whatever you have claimed to have created, but a machine programmed with a few prompts. We end with a hope that Einstein’s saying is not a prophetic element and with a conclusion that AI or any other technology will never replace the human and humane elements of creation. Artificial Intelligence or AI cannot replace ‘guru’ in the real sense of the term.