Poor Elijah: You may hang up now

By PETER BERGER
By Peter Berger

Poor Elijah used to talk to human beings when he called his pharmacy. Then one day instead of talking to a human, he found himself dealing with a disembodied Voice that instructed him to enter his birthdate, his prescription numbers, and Mickey Mantle’s lifetime batting average on his telephone’s keypad.

The Voice didn’t cope well if Poor Elijah pressed the wrong buttons. When it got confused, its default response was to ask irrelevant questions. Poor Elijah’s default response was to repeatedly scream “human being” until the Voice hung up.

A few months ago the Voice got an upgrade. Now it speaks in longer sentences and tries to have a conversation with him. Instead of instructing him to press buttons, he is supposed to say the numbers, and when their business is concluded, it tells him, “You may hang up now.” Unfortunately, Poor Elijah’s enunciation doesn’t always meet the Voice’s standards. It gets confused, and he returns to screaming “human being.”

At no point has he imagined he was dealing with an actual warm-blooded person.

That is not to say that all warm-blooded pharmacists are unfailingly competent or congenial. Neither are all teachers, which is why education tech enthusiasts have declared that “the robots are coming.” Naturally, we are talking about artificially intelligent robots, which presumably means they can do things in classrooms that Roombas can’t.

Most teachers aren’t thrilled at the prospect of sharing their classrooms with – or being replaced by – a silicon-powered, humanoid version of Dumbledore or Miss Crabtree. A 2019 Education Week survey found that eighty-four percent disputed advocates’ claims that “AI-powered” robot “teaching assistants” would improve student learning. Ninety percent disagreed with assertions that entirely replacing human teachers with robots would boost achievement, even where those teachers were “chronically low-performing.”

Some teaching robots are simply artificially intelligent computers with an email account. Students enter data, and the computer at the other end replies with data – hopefully correct, pertinent data. Like Poor Elijah, I have suffered through enough “conversations” with computers to be skeptical.

Not everyone shares my skepticism. One pro-AI professor cites his experiment with human and robot online teaching assistants. He found that his students couldn’t tell the difference. Of course, that might just reflect the inherent shortcomings of online instruction itself, even when two humans are involved.

Researchers have observed that students’ “social connection” is “much stronger” with actual “physical” robots than with “virtual” robot images on computer screens. At the kindergarten level Chinese schools have introduced a “small robot” named Keeko that “tells stories, poses logic problems, and reacts” to students’ responses with “facial expressions.” Boston schools are piloting Tega, a teddy-bear robot that specializes in “language and literacy skills.” Researchers are also experimenting with “young children” and “fully autonomous,” “peer-like” “social robots.”

“Experimenting” is the right word.

Some teachers propose test-driving robots for chores like taking attendance and grading. Others worry, however, about data insecurity, invalid grades, and the implicit gender biases of artificial intelligence programmers, most of whom are male.

Of these concerns, I am particularly uneasy about placing any classroom grading judgments in the hands of remote “experts,” especially given the decades-long hash they have already made of standardized testing. The human programmers and education authorities operating behind the robots are simply the latest incarnation of the expert corps whose bright ideas have plagued public schools for two generations.

I see the direst peril, though, in advocates’ upbeat assessment that children find physical robots “more believable” than virtual robots and therefore have “more positive interactions” with them.

Tech enthusiasts present this as a good thing.

It isn’t.

We are so impressed as the Voice gets more realistic that we don’t consider the likelihood that we may just be getting worse at telling the difference between machines and real people.

I don’t want children to have “positive interactions” with instructional humanoids. I don’t want them to form a “social connection” with a “peer-like” robot, any more than I want them to relate to their classroom’s light switch.

“Social-emotional learning” is one of public education’s latest bandwagon “initiatives.” Not coincidentally, tech-inclined experts currently tout classroom robots’ “social-emotional benefit.”

Someday soon, though, experts will be writing cautionary articles about the harmful effects of classroom robots on students’ social-emotional development, the same way they are now writing cautionary articles about the harmful effects of classroom computers on everything from students’ sleep cycles to their social skills. These are the same computers that the same experts hyped schools into buying by the truckload and that schools park students in front of more and more each day.

Voice-activated companionship is counterfeit and unhealthy. When there is nobody else in the room and I am talking out loud, I would rather it be thought that I am talking to myself than to Siri or Alexa, especially if I have begun to believe they are really talking back. It is a sign of better mental health.

So is talking to my dog. She may not understand much of what I am saying, but when she cocks her head, she is sincere.

The next time you are out at a restaurant, look around the room. Look around your table. Count the people staring at screens. Consider how Facebook has corrupted the word “friend.” Now imagine a world where naive children and awkward adolescents spend their days relating to robots.

If we unleash robot Voices in classrooms, we can expect only more of the same.

You may hang up now.

Peter Berger has taught English and history for 30 years. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.