Keep Kids Learning, Not Cheating Using AI

Technical jargon and fantasy to scare kids straight

humor, not to be confused with 12 Ways to Identify AI-generated Text in Student Work.

New AI tools allow students to cheat on their homework. Essays can be generated in seconds in the style of popular writers.

Unlike most at the time, my kid grew up in a home where the office was filled with computer screens. Occasionally, she heard me swear at them, so knew they weren’t always fun playthings. There were conversations with colleagues filled with computer jargon no normal English-speaking person could follow. “Why is a joke with ‘405-File Not Found’ funny?” she once asked. I laughed.

It didn’t surprise me when I heard her spinning ridiculously warped fantasies to her friends about what amazing things I might be doing with all those computers. While rumored attempts to combine cattle with cats (Purrr-ooo) were abandoned, and cloning pop stars to appear at parties didn’t materialize, we were unwittingly changing the world.

Decades later, parents have to deal with the question of how much their kids actually learn by typing a question into an electronic device, and immediately accepting whatever answer pops out as true.

Intellectual development, study skills, and abilities to focus and reason are at stake.

It’s not hard to demonstrate wrong answers, but most people won’t hold still long enough to consider most of the stuff on the internet is ad-driven garbage. In a world where “Influencer” is a phenomenally high-paying job aspiration, there is little room for “Thinker”. Attention is the trending currency.

When facts and reason are boring, baffle them with bullshit.

How I might have approached this:

“What do you mean you want to try out ChatGPT? Great. Another birds and bees conversation.

What’s AI? Well, you’ve heard of MRSA? The antibiotic-resistant superbug? Yeah, I had it in when I was in the hospital and you didn’t come to see me and I almost died getting my gallbladder out. The ‘A’ is for antibiotics and the ‘I’ is for immunity. MRSA was worse than the coronavirus that killed all those people. You really should have come to say goodbye. AI kills.

Artificial Intelligence? It’s a euphemism people use to keep the uninformed masses from panicking to avoid another run on toilet paper when they get Antibiotic Immunity. Do you remember how scratchy the leaves were? Of course we didn’t have antibiotic cream for your ass-rash! Overuse of antibiotics can make you get MRSA! I don’t want to lose you, so antibiotic cream isn’t allowed in our house.

When I was your age, I knew enough to tell the difference between poison oak and marijuana plants, you goof. It’s hard to believe you still can’t tell the difference. Marijuana plants have five leaves. See? Mass production and capitalism ruin everything. How about we add plants for growing TP to our composted vegetable garden?

Anything else? I can ask chatty Antibiotic Immunity Gross People Transmorphichole if you need more information.

g’nite.

What’s an API? An “Apple Paring Incubator”, because Apple is a big tech company. Steve Jobs ran Apple and put out the original iPod, but he got cancer. Remember the episode of New Amsterdam when the main doctor had cancer and tried to hide it, and his oncologist kept making him eat apples? Well, they didn’t have enough apples to cure Steve, so he made a rapid infusion seed germinator to fill up the blockchain, but the word ‘germinator’ grossed people out, so they call it an incubator, like for baby bird eggs. Now you know.

Whazzat? Paring? It’s the knife you use to peel an apple, dummy. Or short for parity, which is another technical term I can explain if you want... Oh, you wanna dispute Steve Jobs's brilliance? Lemmee put it this way — he’s personally responsible for the downfall of the Sony Walkman and other cassette players. The Apple shuffle was a dance made up just for him that people would spontaneously break into when they first used an Apple iPod. That’s how breakdancing started. Darwinism led to hip-hop. Without Steve, there would be no CD’s, streaming music wouldn’t be a thing, and no one would dance.

Why’s it called Chatbot? Because calling it a scream-at-computer-I-never-bought-it would be lame. Today’s techs don’t like the old long words, like ‘application’, so they shorten it to ‘app’. By the way, you know the Apple app store? That’s in honor of Steve Jobs. His number one goal was to make everyone around him ‘appy’. When someone had a birthday at work, he always sang “Appy birthday to U…”

People mistakenly think bot is short for robot, but it’s not. (How could people suggest millennials can only use single-syllable words?) Bot is from the old saying “you break it, you bought it” and that’s what most bots do. Break things. Oh, you think I should check my facts using ChatBot? fine.

ChatGPT, who’s right, me, or the kid?

next day.

Your friend queried ChatGPT version 3 and it said I was wrong? He probably used the wrong one. Under the Patriot Act, the spy ones are programmed to lie. But usually the CIA tracks everyone who stumbles on one of those. His parents are the super-strict ones, right? Ask him to check the GPT welcome page warning about false or biased answers. He could be using a beta or amateur version. Also, tell him to google AI hallucinations before repeating anything else he finds.

You know I practically built the whole internet. It would be a security issue for me to divulge even an iota of all the technical knowledge I have. You remember all those computers, the spools of magnetic tape we used for ribbon on every present? American citizens need the equivalent of a doctor’s prescription in order to get such high-powered stuff and clearance from NASA to even get into the debugger.

All the important phone calls coming at all hours from all over the world should be a clue as to my credibility. Accents? No, America didn’t have immigrants before 2002.

I invented TrollBots! I was instrumental in developing deep learning for an app that makes Twitter look like a kindergarten. Never mind, we don’t want to have to go live in Russia with Edward Snowden. So, let’s not speak of this again. Your little friend doesn’t even know how to access a HTTP socket puppet compiler, the advantages of Python over Pascal, or who Java the Hut had to debug to win the rigged Chess match.

Go to school.

Next day, the kid is sneaking peeks on the phone.

You know, sweetie, on second thought, it’s pretty cool to have your kid honor you by wanting to use a tool you helped bring into the world. It’ll be great to hear you brag about your old mom’s accomplishments.

slamming door — the kid won’t touch it now.

Thanks for reading!

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Other silly stuff—

If AI tools had personality, they’d probably be rude, but funny.