I have tried this appeal. I don't know if it's working, but I am confident it's the only right appeal to make. My students are interested in public service (I teach econ and stats, mostly in professional Masters programs in public admin and international affairs). I appeal to their integrity and, honestly, I appeal to their pride, by saying: when you are in a room talking with decision makers and they ask you a question, how embarrassing would it be for you to have to say "I need to go look that up" when you could have *learned* it here and brought that knowledge into every room you enter? Basically, I say that there are going to be fewer and fewer people who are developing these skills for real, and I want them to be among them. So it's a bit of a different argument, but I think it's related to wisdom if not quite the same.
I am going to add your metaphor of outsourcing the lifting of weights at the gym - that's perfect! And that actually gets to a point I wanted to note here. The idea of efficiency (hey, I'm an economist so I think about this sometimes) is always relative to a goal. You efficiently accomplish X. There are more and less efficient ways to, say, clear snow from my driveway. So the way "efficiency" is used in the AI context is not just crass (people always think economists are so crass about efficiency) - it is actually being used incorrectly much of the time. The same thing is not accomplished if AI does it. Because for our students, the learning is the outcome. The paper to be turned in is not the outcome - so being able to get the paper done more "efficiently" is a misnomer. The paper isn't the goal at all. I think I might talk to the students about that explicitly: they may not think of it this way, but if we all talk together it will be obvious that these papers are not the goal because - what do they even do? They get handed to me, I look at them and give them back with a grade. They do not inform policy or change public strategies to solve problems. They are exercises. Literally. The weights at the gym capture this. Exercises are used to build muscles so that the actual goals can be reached. AI doesn't increase efficiency, it actually precludes the goal from being reached at all (which is certainly not efficient!!). Can't wait to bring this to the students.
Yes! The process is the point.
I have tried this appeal. I don't know if it's working, but I am confident it's the only right appeal to make. My students are interested in public service (I teach econ and stats, mostly in professional Masters programs in public admin and international affairs). I appeal to their integrity and, honestly, I appeal to their pride, by saying: when you are in a room talking with decision makers and they ask you a question, how embarrassing would it be for you to have to say "I need to go look that up" when you could have *learned* it here and brought that knowledge into every room you enter? Basically, I say that there are going to be fewer and fewer people who are developing these skills for real, and I want them to be among them. So it's a bit of a different argument, but I think it's related to wisdom if not quite the same.
I am going to add your metaphor of outsourcing the lifting of weights at the gym - that's perfect! And that actually gets to a point I wanted to note here. The idea of efficiency (hey, I'm an economist so I think about this sometimes) is always relative to a goal. You efficiently accomplish X. There are more and less efficient ways to, say, clear snow from my driveway. So the way "efficiency" is used in the AI context is not just crass (people always think economists are so crass about efficiency) - it is actually being used incorrectly much of the time. The same thing is not accomplished if AI does it. Because for our students, the learning is the outcome. The paper to be turned in is not the outcome - so being able to get the paper done more "efficiently" is a misnomer. The paper isn't the goal at all. I think I might talk to the students about that explicitly: they may not think of it this way, but if we all talk together it will be obvious that these papers are not the goal because - what do they even do? They get handed to me, I look at them and give them back with a grade. They do not inform policy or change public strategies to solve problems. They are exercises. Literally. The weights at the gym capture this. Exercises are used to build muscles so that the actual goals can be reached. AI doesn't increase efficiency, it actually precludes the goal from being reached at all (which is certainly not efficient!!). Can't wait to bring this to the students.