\u201cA good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.\u201d (1)
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThis is kind of what’s happening with AI right now – we\u2019re great at doing the next gimmick and\u00a0 predicting its short term uptake – but we are not predicting the traffic jams.<\/p>\n
Partly this is because it\u2019s happened so fast \u2013 I mean, some technology has changed in the course of my lunchtime \u2013 not just my lifetime. AI\u2019s been very like that: the distance between proof of concept and implementation is getting very short indeed. We are effectively designing in society.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s challenging education. Science fiction writers like Arthur C Clarke or Asimov, when they wrote stories about AI, didn\u2019t predict that a whole load of academics would be running around panicking about students cheating.<\/p>\n
But they did ask questions about human creativity, ingenuity, cognition, all the other stuff that matters in learning how to be human.<\/p>\n
And academics are having to do this too, now. Are having to consider how to support deep learning, thinking and cognition in students when traditional methods have been removed or are being challenged by other models. If we can generate an image of the future in seconds, what does that do to our imagination – and, most importantly, for the development of how we imagine the future?<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s that deeper cognition that\u2019s the real value of education.And it’s not just<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what the SG\u2019s Innovation strategy relies on (although it doesn\u2019t state that) There is a lot to really celebrate in there, particularly in terms of use as a creative nation. check it out if you haven\u2019t already.<\/p>\n
But it really does depend on there being certain resources available. Human resources. Human value.<\/p>\n
We need creative, critical, synthetical, hysterical, abductive, thinkers. Ask yourself, where is their curriculum? Where do they learn?<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s where lifelong learning comes in \u2013 particularly in courses and subject areas that have the agility and flexibility to actively incorporate changes in their curricula.<\/p>\n
You see, it\u2019s not a negative thing to change careers or to re-learn throughout your life. In fact, another way to look at it is as a significant advantage (and I would argue, necessary one – one that has always been relevant. I changed my<\/p>\n
But you have to make it a positive<\/strong> change \u2013 not a negative one.\u00a0 Negative, extrinsic motivation doesn’t work- “robots are going to take over your job” is not a positive way to inspire a career change or new learning.<\/p>\nWhat we need are intrinsic opportunities \u2013 chances to learn that respond to different times in our lives. AND in different ways, and in different places. That’s always been another thing the OU has tried to be: Open as to People, Places, and Methods.<\/p>\n
More of that type of openness is required (not the pretend kind activated by negative extrinsic motivations).<\/p>\n
And we desperately need to get better at working with the future.<\/p>\n
In fact, we need to not only predict the car and\/or traffic jam – we need to be better at both and to design in futures that accommodate both \u2013 before they become a problem.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(1) often attributed to Francis Pohl, but likely based on Asimov’s prior comment that “It is easy to predict an automobile in 1880; it is very hard to predict a traffic problem.”<\/span><\/span>, from Asimov (1953, p17)<\/p>\nAsimov, I., (1953), Social Science Fiction, in Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future, Ed. Bretnor, R.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the things we get to do now and again as academics is to speak to governments and politicians in policy areas we are interested in. This year, the OU in Scotland contributed to the Royal Society of Chemistry event Science and the Parliament event. This brings together scientists, business, politicians, and government to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,5,53,254],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-comment","category-design-education","category-design-engagement","category-design-for-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4979"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4988,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4979\/revisions\/4988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/IMG_2588_hor-960x398.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Design@50a.png\")
<\/a>