00:04I'm a teacher of reading and writing and
00:06a novelist and today I'm going to talk
00:08to you about what that means at the dawn
00:11of artificial intelligence I'm going to
00:13suggest to you that your ability to
00:15thrive as a human depends upon three
00:17questions AI will never answer and it's
00:21about you your community your democracy
00:25Humanity but first of course a story
00:30in the late 1950s in the Brazilian city
00:32of rifi a Portuguese language teacher
00:35called po fera asked the local mayor for
00:37his support in rolling out a literacy
00:39program to agricultural workers he
00:42showed the mayor how he employed new
00:44methods based upon the idea of critical
00:46pedagogy to teach writing and reading
00:48with great success Pao claimed that in
00:51just a few months he had taught 300
00:53literate agricultural workers to read
00:56write the mayor was a radical Democrat
01:00he supported the teacher literacy
01:01teaching and within two years F's
01:03success made him head of a national
01:05literacy program with the ambition of
01:07teaching reading and writing to the 40%
01:09of Brazilians then classified as
01:14illiterate then in 1964 a military
01:17genter overthrew the democratically
01:19elected government Brazil's military
01:21dictatorship ended all fre elections and
01:24the national literacy program was
01:25stopped Pao ferera was jailed released
01:29after 2 days in jail he fled the country
01:33the military dictatorship had accused
01:35him of being a communist but his real
01:37crime was promising to teach 40% of
01:39Brazilians to read and write you see
01:42Brazil's oligarchical power relations
01:43depended upon a law that stopped
01:45illiterate people from voting without
01:48reading and writing they had no
01:52voice I teach reading and writing at the
01:55University of sford where I lead a
01:56degree we called creative writing
01:58multidiscipline as you would expect
02:00students who come to study here are
02:02already literate they can decode
02:04comprehend and spell words but literacy
02:07is not a binary proposition it's a scale
02:10the kind of reading and writing we teach
02:12empowers students to continue that
02:13Journey towards the higher ends of the
02:15literacy scale where reading and writing
02:18facilitate critical and creative
02:20thinking analysis and
02:23self-reflection when I think about my
02:25own purpose as a teacher I think of Po
02:27fera because my purpose is most clearly
02:30defined by the idea of empowering parts
02:32of our national and Global Community to
02:34give them a voice especially the first
02:37two University students of sford many of
02:39whom come from generations of the
02:40working class I believe the future of a
02:43fairer society and human fulfillment is
02:45in lifelong learning and for many the
02:47best path is the lifelong journey of
02:50literacy a journey so many of us end
02:54school paa's story is just one of the
02:57thousands I could use to demonstrate the
02:58very real connection between Reading
03:00Writing the health of democratic
03:01societies and individual
03:03freedoms if you'd let me tragically
03:05reduce the work of historians linguists
03:07and evolutionary psychologists for one
03:09moment I want to use metaphors to help
03:10us perceive how crucial to human
03:12civilization language literacy and the
03:14media of communication are think of
03:17language as the source code of
03:19civilization the Obscure programming
03:22that has enabled us to communicate with
03:23each other and which regenerates and
03:27do think of reading and writing as
03:31software built upon that source code
03:33enabling societies to store information
03:36develop a collective memory solve new
03:39problems and through self-reflective
03:42Association and inference develop new
03:47thoughts think of media from Stone
03:50hieroglyphs to paperbooks and prints in
03:51the digital age as technology
03:54disseminating information and enabling
03:56us to read and write in different ways
03:59differences that can accelerate change
04:02in the human world and even change the
04:03way reading and writing wire our
04:07brains it's a horribly reductive
04:09metaphor but think of literacy like this
04:10and you understand not only literacy
04:12vital relationship to human civilization
04:14to the Realms of the social and the
04:16political you also understand why humans
04:19developing artificial
04:22intelligence see the development of
04:24large language models as a crucial
04:26stepping stone towards the goal of
04:28artificial general intelligence that is
04:30an artificial intelligence capable of
04:32performing any task humans can perform
04:35we're not there yet but it is where
04:37we're heading and if AI wants to do
04:40human it has to be able to do
04:44language in November 2022 the world was
04:47exposed to its first freely available
04:49fully usable large language model open
04:53GPT and along with over 100 million
04:56users to date literacy teachers around
04:57the world like myself logged on
05:02uhoh it's fair to say the first reaction
05:05of the teaching Community was panic and
05:07not without good reason a few months
05:09after the launch of chat GPT 477
05:12academic misconduct cases against
05:14students accused of generating essay's
05:15using AI had been opened across 40% of
05:18UK universities journalists put chat GPT
05:21to the task of passing tests it could a
05:24SATs it could even pass a bar exam in
05:27law Beyond education in the field of
05:29literature a popular sci-fi magazine had
05:32to close its submission round when an
05:33estimated 500 out of 700 submissions
05:36were made with large language model
05:38software pseudor right a user program
05:40based upon chat GPT software even claims
05:43to have helped you write a novel a
05:45non-fiction book rewriting your first
05:46drafts and generating plots and
05:48character for you as one friend said to
05:50me what is the point of you now it's
05:53okay he was a friend I was less worried
05:55about the point of me than I was about
05:57how well people understood the purpose
05:58and effect of reading and writing in the
06:00life of a human brain and in the
06:04civilization I wondered what would have
06:06happened if Paulo fera setting up his
06:09cultural learning circles in rural
06:10Brazil had been met by functionally
06:12literate agricultural workers who said
06:14hey Paulo we don't really need you and
06:17holding up their phones we have chat GPT
06:20we just ask it what we want to know and
06:22it tells us the answer we don't even
06:23have to read because it speaks to us and
06:25by the way reading and writing aren't
06:27the only way to be clever I can speak
06:29for s very well without that bother
06:32much as the father of a proudly dyslexic
06:35daughter who at the age of 11 can
06:37outsmart me I'm no literacy snob reading
06:41and writing are not the only lifelong
06:42journey towards wisdom individual agency
06:45and healthy communities not even the
06:47only way to develop a useful and
06:49beautiful brain but as a writing teacher
06:51and as a politically concerned citizen I
06:53know the value that an aggregate of
06:55Highly literate citizens in our society
07:01neither am I Lite the educated Elite who
07:03design large language models believe it
07:05is in itself a democratizing force
07:07there's little argument over the fact
07:09that large language models and
07:10generative AI hold enormous promise for
07:12Education Science and
07:15Technology but what concerned me in the
07:17conversation surrounding the release of
07:19chat GPT was the way in which
07:21descriptions of what large language
07:22models can do misconceived the process
07:26purpose and value of reading and writing
07:31on one author's Forum discussing pseudo
07:32right those writers who swore never to
07:34use it argued with those who were one
07:36pseudo right user defended herself and
07:38said I'm proud to be a criminal against
07:40the Arts if it means now everyone of all
07:41abilities can write the book they've
07:43always dreamed of writing for me this
07:46statement confuses product with process
07:48destination with journey we would not
07:51call ourselves sculptors if we machine
07:55statues the problem is chat GPT and a
07:59software programs built on it are not
08:01writing they're not even thinking
08:03they're giving us the impression of
08:04writing and thinking and when we use
08:07them to answer questions and brainstorm
08:10lives we are doubtlessly training
08:13cognitive faculties I've noticed in my
08:15own digitally native children how
08:17quickly they absorb diverse information
08:20but is the process too passive as we get
08:23quick answers and make quick art are we
08:26accessing the Deep reflection and
08:28critical awareness that makes us feel a
08:30sense of our own agency of who we are of
08:37become let me take you somewhere else
08:40there's a special kind of Silence that
08:42falls over a creative writing classroom
08:44where students have been set a writing
08:46task that silence is actually a sound
08:49it's the sound of thought and the sound
08:51of becoming every year I ask my first
08:54year students simply to describe the
08:55room they're sitting in and as we read
08:57out the results of their writing it
08:58Dawns upon us that we sitting not in one
09:00room but in 20 no student description is
09:03the same because surfing the language
09:06associations of their own experiences
09:08writing reveals the unique consciousness
09:11of every writer who captured the smells
09:14in the room with disgust who was lost in
09:16the view from the window who was
09:18irritated by the sounds of other
09:19students who described their thoughts in
09:21the room who noticed none of these
09:23things and hid themselves behind an
09:26objects every detail every choice of
09:29every syntactical Arrangement reveals
09:32our Consciousness to us after listening
09:35to each other we rewrite using the
09:38techniques we observed in the writing of
09:40others and when we rewrite paying such
09:42close attention to Technique we alter
09:45our Consciousness we experience a
09:47different point of view but all this can
09:49only be achieved if we exercise a muscle
09:51in our minds that synaptic magic
09:53responsible for setting down one word
09:55after another in concert with our memory
10:00environment the muscle of our mind is a
10:02metaphor of course our neuroscientific
10:04understanding of what is happening in
10:05the brain is only just
10:08dorning but imaging has revealed how
10:11students copying a piece of writing
10:14engage a limited part of the brain and
10:16the more areas of the brain begin to
10:18connect with each other when we write
10:20creatively in one such imaging test when
10:22the brain activity of experienced
10:24creative writers was compared with
10:26novice creative writers researchers
10:28found parts of the brain as associated
10:29with semantic production with meaning
10:31were much more active in the expert
10:33writers the expert writers also employed
10:36a part of the brain responsible for
10:37learned coordination which the student
10:39writers didn't use so through writing
10:42the highly literate experienced writers
10:44had manifested a conductor for the
10:46orchestra of their mind and they'd also
10:48freed up room in their brain to think
10:50new thoughts and when a brain is free of
10:53the effort of decoding basic
10:54comprehension and literacy we become
10:56fluent readers and fluent writers areas
10:59of our brain are freed up to think at
11:01the same time as reading and writing
11:04using the information provided by
11:05Reading Writing to generate original
11:07ideas through inference prediction
11:13Association as some of you will know Pao
11:16fera the Brazilian teacher who had to
11:18flee his country because real literacy
11:19is so threatening to tyrannical power
11:22became one of the world's most
11:23influential educationalists through his
11:25book The pedagogy of the oppressed he
11:27wrote of an education of read Ing and
11:29writing at its heart an education that
11:32is reflective and practice-based like
11:34creative writing worried about the
11:36dehumanizing forces of neoliberal
11:38capitalism on one hand and the nature of
11:40tyranical societies on the other he
11:43described the purpose of Education as
11:46humanization for the Eternal student of
11:48the humanities Ferrera wrote the world
11:51no longer something to be described with
11:53deceptive words becomes the object of
11:56that transforming action by men and
11:57women which results in their
12:00humanization now what fera meant by
12:04humanization has been hotly disputed in
12:07his work the word tends to stand as a
12:09marker for all that is beneficient and
12:13humankind but this is slightly flawed
12:15depending on what you believe about
12:17human nature a strong willed Tyrant
12:19might be just as human as an oppressed
12:22revolutionary leader tyrants don't need
12:24to be uneducated or illiterate and
12:26sometimes they are highly illiterate
12:27they're highly literate sorry
12:29however what is not disputed is forer's
12:32focus on the potential of Education to
12:34help individuals in the context of their
12:36communities discover a literate voice to
12:39ensure they are not just shaped by the
12:41world but can shape it
12:45themselves as humans witness the dawn of
12:47artificial intelligence I think the idea
12:49of an education aimed at
12:51humanization takes on a new less
12:54partisan more universal meaning far from
12:58wondering what my purpose as a writing
12:59teacher is it has never been
13:02clearer in a world where an intelligence
13:05with no consciousness trained by
13:06corporations beholden to profit as much
13:08as progress has this potential to wield
13:10so much power where artificially
13:12assisted writing will become part of our
13:14daily practice finding and experiencing
13:17what it is to possess a human
13:19consciousness will be critical to human
13:21happiness for the health of democracy
13:24for our ability to meet the problems of
13:28age a Spanish poet called Antonio Macho
13:31once wrote wander your footsteps are the
13:35road and nothing more wander there is no
13:37road the road is made by walking by
13:41walking one makes the road and upon
13:43glancing back one sees the path that
13:46will never be trodden again I often use
13:48these lines to encourage writing
13:50students to say embark on the task of
13:51writing a memoir the Seas of memory can
13:53be challenging but if we look into the
13:55source code of language we find a guide
13:57the ancient root of the word memory can
13:59be found in the Indo European word
14:02murmur which means that which we cannot
14:04grasp and which also finds itself in the
14:05word we Ed to describe speech we cannot
14:07hear like murmuring our memories then
14:10are hard to grasp but in the process of
14:12remembering we author ourselves and
14:15reading and writing offer us one of the
14:17best ways of authoring our past and
14:20recognizing the road ahead is only what
14:24it if we take Macho's poem and replace
14:27the words footsteps and Road for words
14:29and writing we can better understand the
14:31essential power of literacy and how it
14:33helps us in becoming writer your words
14:36are your meaning and nothing more writer
14:39there is no meaning meaning is made by
14:40words by writing one makes the meaning
14:43and upon reading one sees the meaning
14:45made but these need to be your words the
14:48words you make to write for yourself is
14:51to train your brain to think better to
14:53think better is to explore your
14:55Consciousness to possess a
14:57self-reflective Consciousness is is to
15:00human as we progress towards the age of
15:03an artificial general intelligence we
15:05need to demand the right of every person
15:07to have the power and pleasure of
15:09exploring their Humanity by authoring
15:12themselves because however powerful and
15:14useful artificial intelligence becomes
15:16there are three questions it will never
15:18answer for you or me questions we must
15:21answer ourselves by taking the journey
15:24who are we what is our meaning and what
15:27is our purpose thank you
