Guest Speaker: Jesse Miller

Please take this with a grain of salt, please realize that I wish my brain worked as fast and as furious as this man Jesse’s, I have great respect for what he does, what he taught us and how he is helping people, but I do not share is love for social media and AI. I strongly believe our world would be better if we went back to rotary phones, real conversations and playing outside.

Wow, yeah…, “WOW….” At first I thought I was watching a TED talk from a very smart comedian (most comedians are quite smart) as Jesse spoke a mile a minute and had many things to say to an audience, me, who doesn’t know much about social media or technology and is not all that impressed by it. He had me though… I was on the edge of me seat. Smiling at somethings, laughing at others, sometimes my jaw on the floor with the word “wow” slowly coming from my breathless face. It was a whirlwind. It was like being hit by a reasonable size wave and just when you think you have survived you realize you are caught in the under tow.

Needless to say what started out being entertaining soon became overwhelming due to the sheer size of what we are dealing with. The monstrosity of potential and potential issues with social media, AI and “where the world is going” without our consent. Many of the issues we have today are due to this relentless concept of progress. I heard someone describe it by saying, “asking us to stop progress is like asking us to stop breathing, it just isn’t possible.”

Yes, as Jesse stated the world was once worried about the effects of AM radio frequencies streaming into households and what would happen to a child’s mind if they sat in front of said radio and listened to crime thrillers…ohhh, sounds like a scary world back then, and yes everything turned out okay, those kids are fine…But to compare that to what is happening in todays current world, especially with the knowledge we have of how these elements are affecting us and our society, is turning a blind eye. Its apples and oranges. If we are truly being sold the narrative that the dooms day clock is ticking and the climate is changing so rapidly we may not survive then how and why do we keep moving in the direction we are. When does the never ending thirst for “progress” become our inevitable “destruction?” In order to solve our problems we create new problems to solve old problems and with these new old problems that are now old but never solved they are therefore new and old. It’s like giving a child a pacifier to keep them quiet or getting them to sleep. Eventually you will take it away, they will cry and later you will need to get them braces.

The four C’s of Digital Literacy: Critical thinking, Creativity, Communication, Collaboration. With these elements we learn to evaluate AI Generated content, refine ideas, practice our interactions with AI and do group activities with AI. In other words we are learning to deal with machines. We are creating relationships with machines and according to Jesse we are helping train the machines. According to him, as I have not researched it myself, every time we click on one of those cyber security boxes that asks if we can spot all the boxes with a car in it we are training future AI bots to drive for us. We are teaching the AI…So, doesn’t that mean that the more we have a discourse with AI the more we are training it and the more we are training ourselves and our children to be accustom to AI, to need AI and to be okay with AI in every aspect of our lives. I personally don’t agree, don’t see the need and don’t think it is going to end well. I don’t need to have an auto uber show up at my house so I can go grocery shopping.

My understanding also is that AI uses a great deal of energy. So between mining for bitcoin (which is just an investment, not a real currency) and AI we will need way more energy…where is this energy going to come from?

“2025 is forcing us to recognize the need for networked citizenship.” Things like Digital identity and digital rights, security of self among other things. Now we have to protect our cyber self and our cyber ego as well as our real self. We have multiple selves to safeguard, monitor and update so we don’t fall behind, while the real self is slowly drifting away with every new technology and passing generation. Will we forget ourselves in a world of memes, shorts and likes?

As teachers, now we need to teach reading and writing (well not really anymore), math, science, how to be healthy, how to choose your gender, how deal with AI, how to deal with social media, tell whose telling the truth, deep fakes, reconciliation, how to choose a career, and care for the environment. With all of this we barely have time to teach kids the difference between a jump and a hop. On top of all this we have to worry about our own cyber narrative and how we will be judged by parents and peers while all the time fighting from the bottom up to educate our future citizens.

Jesse gave me a much to think about and I learned a lot about the state of things, the way life is and where we are headed. Some people are in love with technology, with every new frequency and cell tower some people think it is making our lives easier, faster, better, and more connected. But my question is, when were we ever disconnected..? What was the matter with checking your messages when you got home, playing cards, or riding your bike to the lake, or sitting around inventing your own game. Now instead of opening the door when the sun is setting and yelling for our kids to come inside because it’s time to go to sleep we are yelling at them to get off of a screen. They didn’t ask for this…and neither did we.. So where does it come from, why is it here, who thought it was a good idea, a necessity? Some people say when you can’t understand a situation or why something is happening follow the money and you will find your answer. In this case, you could follow the money, because someone is making a lot of it, but you could also follow the trail of power and control and see where it leads.. It reminds me of the story “Yertle the Turtle” by Dr. Seuss about a great turtle king who claims all that he can see to be his. So he builds a pyramid bit by bit out of his fellow turtles so that he can get higher and higher and to see more and expand his kingdom. But of course, eventually one turtle doesn’t want to be on the bottom anymore so he moves and the whole system comes tumbling down.

Please remember the grain of salt from the beginning, please remember I mean no disrespect, I don’t mean to be pessimistic or negative I just wonder sometimes where we will end up a few generations from now, I wonder if they will ask who decided all of this, or if they will even know to ask that question in the first place, I’m sure AI won’t tell them.